Tools for Mastering Cash Flow with Maggie Klokkenga

AI helps us generate these transcripts from the audio and sometimes it makes some funny mistakes.

Maggie Klokkenga  00:00

I can’t tell you how many people have said, I want to retire early. And I said, Great, what are you going to retire to? And they just pause, some of them chuckle. And I brought this up to many people, and I said, retirement is not, you know, you think of it maybe as a wedding, but it’s a marriage. It is not a one day event.

Joey Loss  00:34

Maggie Klokkenga. Thanks for coming on the podcast. Yeah, thanks

Maggie Klokkenga  00:37

for having me. Joey, so

Joey Loss  00:39

as I was thinking of all my friends in the financial planning world, I was thinking, who’s had an interesting year, and you have had an awesome year, and I wanted to bring you on and give you a chance to share a little bit about what you’ve been doing, how you come to do what you’re doing right now. And let’s see if we can get in some interesting client stories that might help some listeners take their next steps.

Maggie Klokkenga  01:01

I love it. I love it. Let’s go. So let’s start with

Joey Loss  01:03

how you come to do what you’re doing right now. How did you get here?

Maggie Klokkenga  01:07

Yes, so I’m a financial planner at abunda wealth, and they have a low cost business model that I’ve really admired from afar for a few years. I’ve known Eric, the founder, for a few years, and just was like, You know what? I think I want to become a part of this. Previously, I had owned my own firm, which was mostly on financial coaching, which happy to talk about as well, and that was called Make a money mind shift. And that’s how I somehow I found out about abundo during my time there, and it’s really been super just gratifying, both to have done, gone out and done it on my own, and kind of just decided, You know what, I’m glad that I tried it, but I really love being around people. I’m an extrovert. I don’t want to be the chief everything officer and and I love having a brain trust that the abundo team is, and so, yeah, every day is just it’s so much fun we have we’re all remote, but we all just have a great time, both, you know, remotely in zoom meetings and on Slack and all that. So, yeah, so that’s where, that’s where I’m at now, well,

Joey Loss  02:28

there’s a couple different threads we can pull on there. And I think maybe if we could spend five minutes on the decision to jump to a bundle, you said you didn’t love being the chief everything officer. And I think that’s something that isn’t talked about a lot, but a lot, but a lot of people find, right, there’s, there’s amazing practitioners out there. You know, in our world is financial planning, but it could be anything, any service business, and the idea gets in our heads, you know, it’s going to be amazing if I run my own shop. And there’s just so much we don’t know until we get into it and and so I’m curious if you can share a little bit more about about that and how your love for being a practitioner over being an owner dominated in the end,

Maggie Klokkenga  03:08

yes, so what I’m about to say might actually have somebody go check that’s not me. I am not I called myself the reluctant entrepreneur. So basically, what I was finding was there was this service that I wanted to provide at my previous investment advisory firm. What I was seeing was basically clients like or adult kids, right? We had our clients. They were retirees, and then their children were coming in with all the things like, you know, like daycare and mortgages and just life, and I wanted to be able to help them on with their cash flow, because one of the inherent questions that you have for retirement planning is, how much do you think you’ll spend in retirement? Well, if you don’t even know how much you’re spending now, how are you going to know how much shipping you’re going to spend in retirement? So you know, that’s where I thought, okay, like, how can I create this? And so that’s where make a money mind shift came about because I really wanted to walk alongside people who were really trying to determine, first of all, where’s my money going now? And second, is that where I wanted to continue to go, and if not, what choices can I make now, given the information I have to make pivots, you know? So that’s so I decided to go off on my own and have the support of my husband and you know, but even like Michael kites will talk about, you know, you can create your own firm, and you’re doing what you love to do, but then there’s all these other pieces that you need to do. And what I found, what I’ve told other people who’ve, you know, said, Can we can we talk? I’d really like to find out your experience is as. Solo RIA as a solo investment advisory firm. You there’s only so much revenue that’s great that you’re bringing in to support you and maybe your family, and then there’s only so much that can go out to then maybe delegate out those pieces you might not want to do. So there’s like this catch 22 where you’re like, oh, look, I’m going to go ahead and create my own firm, but now for the pieces I don’t want to do, I don’t have the revenue to support paying for it, so I got to do it, or I’ve got to keep, you know, I’ve got to keep grinding and making sure that I’m bringing in more revenue. Yeah,

Joey Loss  05:33

man, yeah. That story resonates with so many people I’ve talked to. And, you know, one of the things that I’ve realized in in my side of doing this same thing is you have to kind of wrap your head around the idea that eventually, if you’re going to keep growing a business, which is what’s healthy for businesses, is for them to continually grow, you have to be kind of okay and excited about the idea of being a CEO of a firm that happens to be In financial planning at some point. And I think what a lot of folks realize is, you know, this probably goes for a lot of entrepreneurs. It’s like whatever the initial exciting idea was, you you basically your mission in the business is to distance it yourself from the delivery of that over time by building a great business. And I think a lot of people fall out of love with the whole entrepreneurial thing, because they realize, no, I just want to do this thing. I love giving financial advice. I love talking to families, learning people’s stories. Why would I build something where when I do a good job at it, I’m no longer doing that?

Maggie Klokkenga  06:34

That’s exactly, yeah, that’s exactly it. And then you go, Wait, how did I and then, you know, people don’t talk about it, and then you go, Wait, how did I end up here? Because it’s sexy being an entrepreneur, right? There’s something, and that’s, you know, there’s that’s not why I decided to do it. I really didn’t want to. I just felt compelled. Like, I really felt it in my gut and in my soul. I’m like, this is something I want to do, but, but yes, it is, you know, in that it is this thing where people just don’t realize that. Wait a second, now, I’m on this island by myself. You can have masterminds, you can be part of different networks, but it’s still like, Okay, I’m on this island, and now I’m wearing all the hats, and I don’t enjoy wearing all the hats, and I really want to get back to what I love, you know. And I think there I wanted, you know, I posted on LinkedIn when I had, had closed up my firm, because I wanted people to know it’s okay. There’s not there’s no shame. I felt no shame. I was very excited about the move that I made, and I had many people reach out to me afterwards because they wanted to talk about it, and how was your experience? And, you know, because I feel like there’s, there’s this shame in saying, oh, you know what? It didn’t work out. And for me, I it worked out. I just wasn’t enjoying it as much as I was hoping I would. And, you know, so, so I ended up making that move. I

Joey Loss  07:56

admire that. You know, you came from a space where you’re working with retirees. Presumably, there’s just a higher net worth there, right? And there’s kind of a wave of people through XYPN that are coming from that space. I’m included in that group. We spent several years learning how to take care of retirees and pre retirees in a higher net worth space. And then at some point, it just got a fire starts burning to help people who are in the early part where we feel like the impact might be bigger on the eventual trajectory for these people. What was so different in your work with make a money mind shift, working with those folks than working with the later stage people?

Maggie Klokkenga  08:36

Yeah, through making money mind shift. I, at one point, I was coaching. Every decade I was coaching, I always had six clients. At the time I was coaching 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s. So it, but it for me, it was really having them identify their cash lots of times, like with the coaching that I did with make a money mind shift. We were looking in detail at a balance sheet. I’d call it a financial snapshot, because I didn’t want that. I didn’t call it net worth, because some people will identify their self worth or their net worth. We would look in detail at their expenses, and I’d have them do it, because it’s their numbers, and there’s so much that awareness, and then just to have the agency to go, wait, I can make these changes now, if I choose to. And that’s, I think, what’s such a basic building block in financial planning. But a lot of times, as a retiree, it’s glossed over because they already know their expenses are for the most part, and they’re just looking to say, okay, you know what? What kind of paycheck Can I set up for myself as I retire? Because I’m moving from working to not working, like what, you know, and what are some investments that I should be invested in? And, you know, what are some other things to think about versus. Because, you know, people, as in their in their earlier stages, like 20s and 30s, 30s, I had a group of just 20 something women at one point in time that who I was coaching individually, just happened that there was a wave. And, you know, just to talk to them about, you know, What decisions do you want to make now, just in your current expenses, and do so you can set up some savings. I had somebody who I had asked her, could you she saved $40 per month, and she ended up saving $100 per month, and we checked in, and she was amazed and so excited that, like, we had met a little bit later, she had, like, $300 saved up, and she was so excited about it, and it’s like, those are some just basic building blocks to help set up for the trajectory of then saying, Let’s push this out, 20, 3040, years. Because retirement is not retirement as it was for the people who you and I worked with right retirement now, the way I see it is, it’s, I don’t even think retirement is really the proper word, but it’s just, it’s finding what you love to do, and maybe you’re making some money doing it, and can you afford to do that? And if you know, if not, what steps you can take now so that you can maybe get to a point where you’re like, you know what? I really enjoy doing this more, and I can see doing this for a longer period of time, and maybe I’m still going to parse out with maybe doing some volunteering or some civic activities. So through makeup money, mind shifting was really going down to that cash and seeing, you know, let’s, let’s look at some thoughts that we’ve had about cash. So you know, before you and I talked this morning, I sent you the clients, money, script, inventory assessment. So that was something that I worked use with my clients, and just to identify, like, bring awareness to maybe some subconscious thoughts they had about money that they never knew existed. And so it’s then just bringing that into the conversation to say, oh, you know what? I grew up with this, I never realized that I had this thought about money, and now I know it, and now i i have the agency that I can change it if I want to, and if I don’t, that’s fine, but now at least I’m aware,

Joey Loss  12:12

yeah, for listeners that that money assessment she’s talking about, I’m going to put it in the show notes. It. You know, one of the things that’s really interesting about working with people that are earlier in their financial planning life is it’s a lot harder for everybody. I think, I don’t know, Maggie, would you agree that it can be harder than than later, and I think one of the challenges is, when you have a client who’s nearing retirement, right? And maybe, let’s say they have a million or a couple million dollars, from a value illustration perspective. You know, if we talk about your portfolio and we make some adjustments, and the market does the long term average of 8% or something, it’s pretty easy for everybody to feel like this is a worthwhile relationship. But when you’re in the early part, right, and we’re talking about saving hundreds of dollars, or a couple $1,000 a month, there’s not going to be portfolio confirmation that, like every dollar being spent is you’re getting direct value today, right? It’s really about building a life that matters, and over time, your portfolio is going to become a part of the thing that allows you to maintain that lifestyle you love. So it requires two things, really, one, a tremendous amount of patience, and two, a little bit of faith that like, the things that we’re doing are contributing to something bigger. And what I like about assessments like the kmsi is they help us understand some of the things that might be getting in the way of us starting to build that snowball. And so could you talk a little bit more about, you know, in episode one with Ed combs, we talked a bit about money scripts and attachment styles. But can you share some more about how money scripts might get in the way for people that are trying to do the right thing for themselves?

Maggie Klokkenga  13:58

Yeah. So, for example, I had, I had a couple that, when they filled out the kmsi, it just identifies some core money scripts. And one of them is called Money vigilant. Where you’re usually keeping, you know, you’re, it’s, it’s hard for you to spend. You’re very much a saver. And lots of times, you know, a couple is Yin and Yang in their relationship, they really balance each other out. That happens a lot with money, too. You’ve got typically a spender and a saver, and what was happening was this particular couple, she couldn’t understand why her husband, he was a saver, but he was also like, he would buy so many boxes of cereal at the grocery store. She usually was due the grocery shopping, and he would buy 14 boxes of cereal. And she was like, I don’t know why. It was just, it’s his thing. Like, she just thought this was his thing. And in doing the kmsi and talking about it more, it. Came out that as a child, when his parents were fallen on difficult financial times, that’s what they ate for dinner, with cereal. And so that gave him the security to have cereal in their current home. It gave him security to go. I know I have that. And so it just, you know, the way I the way I feel about the kmsi, it just encourages conversation for things that you just never realized even existed until you go, Oh, well, maybe, maybe I’m a saver, or maybe I’m a spender, but like, how or another one is money avoidant. It’s basically that you’re spending money. Basically as soon as it comes in, you’re spending it. I had multiple clients where, as a child, they had a savings account and the parents spent it, and they knew the parents spent it. Usually it had to do with gambling and and the what they were finding was, as soon as the client, soon as they would get money, they go spend it. And in doing that assessment again, they realized, when we were talking about it, they realized how that, you know, action that happened to them in their childhood then prompted them with their current behavior, and again, it gave them the opportunity to say, Is this something I want to continue, or is this something that I want to redirect?

Joey Loss  16:31

That’s fascinating. There’s so many, as you talk about that, there’s so many stories that come to mind that I’ve seen. And yeah,

Maggie Klokkenga  16:38

I know that’s the thing. It’s just, it’s, I just really think of the on some money, script, inventory, assessment, just this. It’s just a tool, right? It’s just a tool to engage conversation, to just say, Oh, I didn’t think about that. I didn’t realize that. And now, now I have awareness. I mean, I think Joey, you and I talked about right before we started recording, that it’s so hard. First of all, you get awareness of something, right? And then, depending on the person, once you get that awareness, you either you might go into analysis paralysis, because then you you say, I don’t know, there’s so many options, I don’t even know where to begin. Or you say, Okay, I I want to do everything, and now I want to do everything like I would work with with clients who wanted to do all the financial planning pieces all at once. And I’m like, let’s focus on the cash flow first. You’ve got to, you know, let’s get that duck in a row first. And so there’s so many different avenues that could happen just from gaining some more clarity, and that can go for any situation that we’re in, once we get awareness, trying to let ourselves know it’s okay to take baby steps as you move forward. Baby is not bad, baby is good. You’re just giving yourself the grace to say, okay, here I’m going to go do the next thing. Now I’m going to go do the next thing, because otherwise we just, you know, become stymied, and we don’t do anything. Yeah,

Joey Loss  18:05

right, and that cash flow is the portal to everything else in financial planning. It’s like the window to what’s possible. And so that’s where I think behavior like financial coaching is so powerful, because I’ve, I’ve noticed with a few clients, like if, if, and sometimes, like, both spouses are completely aligned, right? And we’re operating from a place where the mission’s the same, the steps that we’re willing to take to get there the same. And, and there doesn’t seem to be, at least not apparently, so some sort of money script combat, you know, going on and, but in other cases, you just notice this, this cash flow piece is really hard and they want. If we talk about goals, we know what they want. And if we go through the planning process, we can reverse engineer here. Here’s the few things we need to do to start earning our way there. And then, when that doesn’t happen, it’s like, what do we do? And and that tension, I think, is, you know, divorce is commonly I mean, I think finances are the leading cause of divorce in America. And when you talk about money scripts, it’s really not that hard to imagine why that happens and how perspectives of each other can change. I mean, if you have one person who’s who’s got these deep money scripts because somebody was stealing from their savings account as a child or spending money they didn’t have, you can understand how they have such a conservative relationship with money, and that they genuinely feel an intense emotional threat if their partner’s not on the same page with that, and maybe their their case was the savings account that was gone, so they feel a need to spend it before somebody else does. That’s a pretty tough situation, and it’s just one layer deeper, looking at money scripts that’s going to help you unpack the actual issue. And there’s a particular client story that comes to mind. It was fascinating. I talked about. This in episode one, but I’ll bring it up again. I feel like I’m gonna use this story all the time. We had at my last firm, we had a client couple. They were in their 60s, and she had a very successful nursing career, and across that career, she had accumulated $5 million through savings and investing over the long term. And when we did their financial plan, we looked at cash flow, and we realized, oh my gosh, they’re spending like, 50, $60,000 a year. And she talks about a desire to travel all the time. And so I said, you know, when I looked at the numbers, I was like, you could literally spend three times as much as you’re spending now, and you have very little chance of running out of money before age 100 and it was just hard for her to accept. And so we ended up having, like, a series of meetings, kind of unpacking that and where that comes from. And sure enough, her dad, grown up, spent money they didn’t have they were food insecure very often. And so the deep rooted fear of ending up back there through financial irresponsibility, which was kind of a self judgment thing for her, it was like me laying out the numbers in a logical sense was not enough, right? There’s another conversation that had to happen, and once that was unlocked, I mean, now they you can’t get them to stop traveling. They’re first class everywhere and and it’s amazing, because it’s like money’s this tool that helps us live amazing lives, but there is a relationship component, individually that we have with it that is really worth digging into. And that’s where I think behavioral coaching around finances can really shine.

Maggie Klokkenga  21:32

Yeah, no, that’s such a great that’s such a great story. And I think that, you know, just with our clients, I think it’s, it’s really trying to identify and just recognize those pauses, those you know, like, didn’t just ask them to, you know, tell me more, like, what’s going on. Because it’s kind of like, you know, when you say, if you’re having a bad day, somebody asked how you’re doing, you say, Fine, but you’re not fine, you know. So, like, Tell me more, like, what, what’s making today? Fine. Like, okay, well, actually, I’m having a bad day. And just to know, like, just to be able to parse that out again, sometimes it’s you may not even know why you’re having a bad day. You may not even know why you’re spending your money. You just know that you are and so, like you said, like then to be able to go back to your client and be and and have her, you know, just verbalize and talk about her dad, and, you know, the fact that he was irresponsible and and the other thing you brought up Joey is that she felt that she had her own judgment on herself for what she needed to do. And I think that’s such a huge piece that as financial planners, just for us to try and recognize for our clients, like, like, I try to give my clients Grace all the time. One of the fun things that we have at abundo is in our client portal, we have a place where they complete a task, they get confetti, like they get confetti, and during my Zoom meetings, I also have a confetti because there’s just something that, you know, we don’t give ourselves enough credit when we do something right. We’re always focusing on the negative, and so you know, to try and remove that, that shame, or that, you know, that responsible responsibility, the expectations on ourselves, to let somebody else say, You know what, you’re doing a great job. You know, that helps, but it’s, you know, we have to work on ourselves as well. But that’s so key that you know, for your clients, say, okay, I can spend some money and it is okay, and I’m going to do it, and it’s not going to be, you know, nothing horrible is going to happen. Yeah,

Joey Loss  23:44

yeah. And to summarize, for listeners, kind of what we’ve covered so far, I think, you know, the the first layer is, if you’re, if you’re trying to work on your financial plan, your do it yourself, or you’re working with a planner, you know, we look at the numbers, we start with cash flow, and we try and figure out, are you on track for the things that are important to you and and if there’s some friction there, that’s where we go this layer deeper. And we start figuring out, well, what’s getting in the way? And that involves looking backwards to see, how did we get here? You know, what are the things that are contributing to us feeling and feeling this way and kind of stepping on our own feet. And then also, I think there’s a component of, how do we make the goals that we’re reaching for more tangible? And I think that’s a really big part of coaching and good financial planning is, like, you said, just kind of extracting. Tell me more about that, right? So it’s like, oh, I want to retire by the time I’m 60. It’s like, I’m like, What does retirement mean? What does it look like? Do you have to does it mean you’re not doing anything? Does it mean? And the more we can make that real, the more we can start attaching numbers to it, the more attainable it starts to feel. And then you have these things on both sides, right, looking backwards. We can kind of untangle the past, and we can make tangible something that’s in the. Future and really start tracking progress. And I think whether you’re working alone or you’re working with others, those are two really, really helpful, powerful ingredients.

Maggie Klokkenga  25:10

Yeah, it’s key, what, what you just summarized. And it is, you know, as far as just what we can expect in the future, I can’t tell you how many people have said, I want to retire early. And I said, Great. What are you going to retire to? And they just pause. Some of them chuckle, and and I, and I brought this up to many people, and I said, retirement is not, you know, you think of it maybe as a wedding, but it’s a marriage. It is not a one day event. We no longer have the gold watches and the going away parties. Those are kind of the thing of the past. This is another whole time period in your life you want to enjoy. So what is it that you’re going to do? And sometimes people just want to know, is this even a possibility? And maybe in my near future than later, that’s fine. We can absolutely talk about that. We can run some numbers, but I want you to think about what it is you are going to do and you know, and if you’re not happy with your current job, well maybe, is there something that you can do that, you know, maybe a slightly lesser salary that you will enjoy. And maybe it doesn’t work out. Maybe you need to keep that same salary. That doesn’t mean you can’t pivot. Let’s talk about that. I feel like sometimes, you know, people may just get into this slump where they’re like, this is this is my job. This is what I have to do, and I’m stuck. Not, no, it’s not but, you know, sometimes I think, as financial planners, it’s just for us to kind of lift them up, lift our clients up a bit, and go look around. There’s, there’s other avenues you may just, you know, you may not see them right now, because you’re, you’re in this slump and and let me help you get out of that. And let’s kind of look to see what’s what else is available. Yeah, 100%

Joey Loss  27:02

I love that you’re talking about visualizing, what does retirement really look like? You know, because I there’s one, I think, where people get by their late 40s and into their late 50s, for sure, especially in high demand professions like, you know, doctors, I see this a lot. Attorneys, I see this a lot. They just get tired, you know. And it’s like this thing that they still derive a lot of purpose and identity from this amazing work that they do. It’s just too much. There’s too much of it. It’s too stressful. And they’re like, When am I done, you know? And if you can help them create the context to just do it less and maybe for a little bit longer. A lot of times, these people fall back in love with what they do because they’ve got more headspace to get back to enjoying the other parts of their life.

Maggie Klokkenga  27:55

Yeah, yeah. Sometimes I I’ll ask my clients, what do you what did you enjoy doing when you were 11 years old? Because at 11, we remember it typically, and also, there was something that we probably told ourselves as we were growing up, I’m too old to do that now. You might not be like when I first heard that question, I immediately thought, I love to dance. And I ended up taking a Zumba class because I was like, I I go back and dance like, this is totally, you know, and and so and so. To your point, Joey, it could be that, you know what, maybe, maybe you’re going to continue doing, you know, working what you what you’re doing, and you actually find it, fall back in love with it, because maybe you’re giving yourself some permission to do something outside of it that also you love doing, and that’s okay, you know, you can find the space to do it sometimes, as a financial player, you also know this, that you might just need to be a bit of a mediator, or just that third party observer to just say, Hey, I noticed This between, like, with a couple, I noticed this, you know that you partner are saying that you know this partner, you know, never does anything for for himself. Well, maybe, maybe if he did some word things for himself, maybe he would, you know, just have a world love of life and want to continue doing the job that he’s doing. And maybe not. But again, it’s a conversation that, as financial planners, we can bring to our clients just to be like, Hey, I’ve, I’ve noticed this about, you know, can we talk about this a little bit

Joey Loss  29:32

more? I sometimes wish there was a way to have our asset allocation graphs show, like, health and, you know these other things that matter, because some people get so fixated on that retirement moment, thinking of it as a wedding, right? Like everything is going to be happy, never, ever land after that, that they’re trading their health to get wealth. You know, the Dalai Lama quote resonates with that, and and then they spend all their wealth regaining their health and. They never had that period of exploring. And so I think, like, great coaching, great planning, all these things dig into, how do we find a balance? Right? Like the financials matter. We can see issues. We can dig into another layer when we notice some financial issues. But at the end of the day, it’s like, we want to help you get where you want to go, but we also want to help you enjoy the ride exactly and and so that’s where the planning thing is really a process. It’s not like we’re ever done, because you’re never done trying to find a balance for those things. And at different times, it’s going to be different things. You know, like my wife and I were heading into a period where we want to have a bunch of kids quickly, and there’s not going to be a whole lot of individualism and, like, creative exploring, and we’re good for that. We realize, you know, that’s an investment we can make, and we’re very excited about what that looks like. We’re enjoying our daughter, but we know that in our 40s, like we’re going to be very glad that our kids are older and that we’re doing those things, and once they go to college, we’re going to be, you know, kind of young kids again, in a way. And so there’s just going to be these different periods of life where these different balances make sense and different allocations over time. And so I love talking asset allocation and being a nerd about investments, but that’s really not the whole pie.

Maggie Klokkenga  31:20

No, I love, I love that. I love the idea of if there was a way with health, because that’s been even more on my mind as, you know, as my parents get older and, you know, just looking out at and working with clients who are saying, you know, we want to continue to be active, and we would like to be able to retire a couple years earlier. Just, it doesn’t have to be, you know, retire in my early 40s. Maybe it’s just a couple years earlier, because we’ve seen what happened to our parents. And so we want to be able to enjoy our life. And I think that’s what our money’s for, right? It’s so we can enjoy our current life, and not just, you know, have this carrot dangling, saying, with a retirement written on it, saying, Well, that’s what it’s going to be. I’d love to be able to kind of pinpoint, say, Hey, you mentioned this. This is really important to you right now. Client, great. This is something that we can pass some of your money aligned to this. And then let’s continue to also look for the future as well, because that’s the future is going to happen. It’s very hard for us to connect to our future self, but it is going to happen. And so let’s, let’s talk about both.

Joey Loss  32:29

Yeah, 100% I love that. I kind of wish I could find a guest that could tell me, like, come on, and they’re they could talk about how they had a great career, they saved a ton of money, and then I want them to tell me everything that sucks about retirement, because it’ll just make real, like, that’s not the destination, you know, that’s, we got to get there. We all have to get there at some point. We can’t work. But it’s not, it’s not this meadow of gold,

Maggie Klokkenga  32:55

no, the Disney movie, yeah, yeah. No, it’s not. Instead, you could become full off and go in the puddle. And I feel like more people are realizing that. You know, younger people are realizing that. And so then they are looking for that balance. What is that balance of going, what can I spend now to enjoy the life I have now, versus just trying to keep it all for this destination unknown in the future. You know that I’m being told I need to save for retirement, but, but I want to enjoy life now, just like what you know you guys are going to be doing with having kids, and just you’re in the tree, you’re gonna be in the trenches and and enjoying the those those moments, and it’s just, you know, that’s life. You want to be able to enjoy it and not be just always thinking about what’s the next thing for my future?

Joey Loss  33:51

So let’s wind back for listeners who are scared of their cash flow, they know they got to look right. It feels like a homework assignment they’ve been putting off for years. They got to start digging in and figure out, how do I start building resilience so that I can talk like attain some of this big picture that we’ve spent some time talking about? What is it? What advice do you have for them that are trying to dig into this, maybe with their spouse or on their own? What does that look like? If it feels challenging to sit down and do it.

Maggie Klokkenga  34:23

Yeah, great question. I mean, first thing really is to track your expenses, like actually track them, whatever way you want to do it. Do it through a budgeting app. Do it with pencil and paper, but look at what you’re spending and what I would tell clients and even prospects, when I was at make a money mind shift, I would say, you know, you cannot use a credit card summary as what you’re spending, because they would do these graphs, like Chase would do a graph of like you’re spending and am a graph that says shopping, which really. Equals Amazon, which equals black hole. Nobody knows what you’ve been spending. You don’t even know what you’ve been spending, right? And so you really have to dig in and look. So it’s kind of like stepping on the scale, being financially naked. You’re looking at what you’ve been spending, and that’s going to give you so much information. Joey, to just say, Okay, now I’ve got this information. I might not like it, but I’ve got the information, and now I get to decide what I want to do with this information. Do I want to stick my head in the sand and just ignore it? That’s that’s a choice. Do I want to make some changes? Do I like I will say, Do you want to keep expenses? Do you want to cut? Do you want to reduce? So if that’s what you want to do, I think somebody else has brought that up. Keep cut, produce, then, then make those changes, make those choices, and then say, okay, now I know now I’ve got the next step. Because expenses really, you can bring in more income, yes, but expenses really give you an idea of what you’ve spent in the past, and how do you want to move forward. So I feel like that’s really a key step in just like the first thing to do you could all obviously take the class money, script, inventory assessment, like you said you’re going to put in the show notes for the link. But So between those two, it gives you an idea of maybe why you’ve been spending the way you’ve been spending, based on the kmsi, and then also, how do you want to move forward with that spending?

Joey Loss  36:28

And I think, I think a lot of people get surprised by where their money goes when they do that exercise. My wife, so I’m a financial planner. I’ve been one for 10 years. My wife and I, like, every quarter will go through our spending and there’s just, like, four or five new subscriptions that, like, I don’t care about, she doesn’t care about. It’s just the nature of this time that those things creep in and and it’s not we don’t like, feel bad about it when we look at it. We’re just like, Man, how the heck did that happen? You know, what do we watch one show on Hulu and we’ve been paying for it for a year. You know, it’s just those things add up. Or like DoorDash. We don’t need DoorDash. You know, DoorDash is a killer, too. Amazon, DoorDash, oh,

Maggie Klokkenga  37:08

it would double. It would double my clients. They would double my clients expenses. So two things as you’re bringing this up, one on the subscriptions. If you go ahead and you’re and you’re going to subscribe to something. Go ahead and put an immediate calendar reminder. And if you’re a couple, send it to your partner. And if you’re not a couple, send it to a friend to invite them to say, I’m going to cancel this subscription on this date. So that way, you know, okay, it’s, it’s in there. You’re not going to forget about it’s in your calendar on your phone. The second thing is something that one of my clients had done, which I then just recommended to other people when they would find that the Amazon right black hole. And I’m thinking about this because she had a baby at the time, and she was buying things for the baby. She was buying things for her house that she thought she needed, and then she was buying just, you know, maybe some home supplies, like, you know, paper towels or whatever. She challenged herself to not open the boxes. If she opened the boxes, then obviously she needed the item that she bought. If she didn’t open the boxes, because many boxes would arrive, you know, at the house at any point in time, then maybe it was something she really didn’t need. So if you’re struggling, so if somebody’s struggling with their expenses, they’re like, I don’t know how to stop. Don’t open your boxes and see what happens. You really need it maybe, maybe not. And if you choose to keep it great, then then returning is a whole other thing, but, but then you at least know, oh, I am buying things, maybe for the convenience, or I’m buying things because I’m getting that dopamine hit, and I feel good when I make the purchase, but I really don’t need it. Not going to use it. That is,

Joey Loss  38:51

I’m going to use that 100% because Amazon is a problem with a couple clients and and we’re not above it. Like, we’ve got a box coming every day, and like, we open it and it is something we need. It’s some baby item, you know. But it’s, and it’s, you know, $7 $9 $10 and I think it’s so easy to look at spending, look at Hulu, look at one of these things that are under $20 and be like, well, that’s not the thing that’s creating the problem. Maybe not on its own, you know. But if you had, if you let that pile of boxes build up by your door, could they collectively be an issue? Are they keeping you from creating context where you can switch jobs to something you enjoy, or take the trip that you really want to do and these things that are going to level up your life? Probably, I mean, all of that goes in the bucket of making things better and getting you where you want to go. So I love that exercise. I’m totally still in the Amazon box. That’s hilarious. Part of me says, like, even if we open the box, let’s just keep the boxes and just see, like, if it fills our living room after two months, like we got, we got some homework, right?

Maggie Klokkenga  39:56

For the visceral reaction, yeah. Cash. It’s just the Amazon box, I mean. And it really is, if you think about it, like we were having the same thing where it’s like a box is kind of like, what are these boxes? And especially as part of a couple you’re both buying, yeah? So you don’t necessarily know what’s happening, or maybe you did, like, Oh yeah, that that thing was for the baby. But it’s you can get into a point where, if you just pause and go, Oh, hey, hey there. Maybe we don’t need it. Maybe this wasn’t something and need, want whatever it is, but maybe it’s just again, having the awareness go, Oh, here’s another Amazon package. Wonder what this is. Yeah,

Joey Loss  40:40

absolutely. And the spending thing, you know, people hate budgeting. People hate tracking spending, but I do think it’s a great place to start. Because, I mean, I love comparing financial planning to things like nutrition and exercise. Because if you’re Yeah, let’s say if you’re feeling overweight, which is probably akin to overspending, right? Like, yeah, where do you have to look? You know, it’s, I mean, working out will help but tracking calories, tracking those things, they’re not fun. They’re certainly tedious, but it’s going to tell you a lot about what’s going on. And you don’t have to do it forever on either case, you know, you do it long enough to learn what you need to learn, kind of reset your framework, and then maybe in six months you take another peak. Have things crept up again. And then, from a broader planning standpoint, once you get to the point where we can see, in a financial planning context that you’re saving enough each month to get to where you want to go when you want to get there. That’s how you earn the right not to have to do this crap, you know, because nobody likes it. If you got a six pack, I don’t think you need to count your calories. You’re good man, right? You know, no, it’s

Maggie Klokkenga  41:45

that’s such a good example, Joey, because, like the food journal, when you’re writing things down, when you know you have to write something down, it’s the same thing with spending people are like, I don’t want to write that down. Maybe I’m not going to go buy it then, because I don’t want to even write it down. I do not want to go write down that I just ate or I’m about to eat three Hershey Kisses that are in my pantry right now. Okay, so I’m not going to do it right, thanks. Like it’s just, it’s it’s tracking it, it’s just being aware you’re gathering information to go and to that point, why? Why was I about to eat three or she kisses in the first place? Was I hungry? No, probably not, like I would talk to my clients. Are you hungry? Are you angry? Are you lonely? Are you tired? That’s a main culprits for spending unnecessarily, because there’s something else we’re trying to avoid. We’re trying to get the dopamine hit. We’re trying to avoid those emotions and so we spend or we eat?

Joey Loss  42:44

Yeah, hungry, lonely, tired, sounds like entrepreneurship. That’s probably where the 10 pounds came from. Not angry, but the other three for sure. Well, Maggie, this was fantastic. Thank you for coming on. How can people connect with you, if they if they love what you had to share?

Maggie Klokkenga  43:04

Yeah. Well, thank you again for having me on Joey, this was so much fun. So they could connect with me by going to abundo wealth.com and they could find you there. They can also find me on LinkedIn. Just look me up at Maggie, clocking day, awesome.

Joey Loss  43:19

Thanks, Maggie, well, for everybody check the show notes. We’re gonna have that kmsi tool, which will help you dig into money scripts, if you’re feeling some pain as you look at cash flow, otherwise, we’ll see you next time.

Joey Loss  43:35

Thanks for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to the show and share the episode with friends or family that may find a conversation helpful or interesting. Show Notes and episode transcripts are available on my website at flow financial.com/podcast I want to give a special thanks to Bo delicens for the musics explorer and to the podcast man for producing the show. We’ll see you next time

Disclaimer  43:59

The Wealth Unplugged Podcast is sponsored by Flow Financial Joey’s Registered Investment Advisory offering Financial Planning and Investment Management services to clients across the United States. The opinions voiced in this material are for general informational purposes only, and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual security to determine which investments may be appropriate for you consult your financial advisor prior to investing. This information is not intended to be a substitute for individualized tax advice. Please consult your tax advisor regarding your specific situation.