The Dreamer joining us on the podcast this week is Lisa Schader.
Lisa Schader is a financial coach and the creator of MoneyFitMoms.com. Lisa and her husband became millionaires in their early thirties. In this episode, she shares the financial decisions her family made to reach that milestone and how building wealth can be used to do good in the world.
In this episode, you will learn about:
If you enjoyed today’s episode, here’s what you can do to support me and help more Dreamers discover the podcast:
Connect with Anne-Lyse:
A Team Dklutr Production
The Dreamer joining us on the podcast this week is Lisa Schader.
Lisa Schader is a financial coach and the creator of MoneyFitMoms.com. Lisa and her husband became millionaires in their early thirties. In this episode, she shares the financial decisions her family made to reach that milestone and how building wealth can be used to do good in the world.
In this episode, you will learn about:
If you enjoyed today’s episode, here’s what you can do to support me and help more Dreamers discover the podcast:
Connect with Anne-Lyse:
A Team Dklutr Production
Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies
Anne-Lyse Wealth: This is the Dreamers Podcast, episode four with Lisa Shaer. Today is Monday, February 22nd. This
Lisa Schader: The personal finance class we had taken, the professor told us, if you live for 10 years, like no one will. You could live like no one can. but so I sat and I computed our net worth after, and it'd been just almost exactly 10 years and we'd hit over a million just based on those like really basic principles of spending less than you earn budgeting, make sure you're.
Spending less and then putting that money into investment accounts and then doing lazing investing, you know, letting it grow. I think that's why I think having a community can be really empowering because then you can ask those questions that you are too embarrassed. To ask, especially because money can be a really touchy issue and then you can get over those little hurdles.
So that's what I try to do, is just to be that person who people can ask their questions to and not embarrassed. I always take people where they are and, and also I'm big about helping people realize that if they don't know these things, it's not because they're dumb or foolish or they weren't paying attention during class because.
There is not enough financial education out there Welcome back to the Dreamers podcast. I'm your host. I'm Liz Wealth, and I'm so glad you're here. My guest today is Lisa Shaer. Lisa is a financial coach and the creator of Money Fit Moms. She is passionate about educating families on how to make smart financial moves so they can build wealth, live well and do good in the world.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: On today's episode, Lisa shares how she and her husband became millionaires in their early thirties with boring investing. She touches on how a personal finance class she took as an elective in college impacted her views on money. Lisa shares many lessons she learned from her parents. And grandparents and, uh, how she's preparing her children to be financially savvy.
Here is Lisa Shaer. Lisa Shaer, welcome to the Dreamers Podcast.
Lisa Schader: Oh, thank you so much for having me. Well, it's a pleasure
Anne-Lyse Wealth: to have you. I found out about you when I was listening to the Marriage Kids in Money Podcast, and, uh, I thought your story was inspiring. So can you share a little bit about your story and what you
Lisa Schader: do?
Yes. Okay, so my name's Lisa Shader. I am a. Financial coach. I have a background in accounting, but I think the reason why most people follow me or know me is because I created Money Fit Moms that is really aimed at empowering specifically women and moms with their finance because of. Just the way my life path went.
I had exposure to personal finance when I was doing my master's degree, and then I got a accounting degree, started working in accounting and, and then I started having kids and staying at home. That's when blogging was really starting to take off, and whenever I saw. Financial content directed at women.
It was a lot of couponing and which, nothing against couponing, but I feel like it kind of stopped there with saving money and I realized the things that I had learned in a personal finance class my husband had had taken together about just basic investing, about building wealth through, not just saving, but putting that savings into investment accounts through tax Advantage account, basically 401k.
IRAs, really basic stuff. That was even a little intimidating to me. Even with a Master's of tax, I knew that if I could feel a little intimidated the first time I opened an IRA, that this was probably a really common issue. And so that's why I started Money Fit Moms. When I started it, I was like, oh, well, who's gonna listen to me?
And I realized that. The personal finance class we had taken, the professor told us, if you live for 10 years, like no one will. You could live like no one can. Which now I realize is kind of like a Dave Ramsey saying, but so I sat and I computed our net worth after, and it'd been just almost exactly 10 years and we'd hit over a million just based on those like really basic principles of spending less than you earn budgeting, make sure you're.
Spending less and then putting that money into investment accounts and then doing lazing investing, you know, letting it grow. It wasn't about picking hot stocks, it was just about putting the money in there. And so that's when I started going out there because I just really feel confident that it's really basic stuff.
It's not complicated, but sometimes it can feel intimidating, and I think that's why I think having a community can be really empowering because then you can ask those questions that you are too embarrassed. To ask, especially because money can be a really touchy issue and then you can get over those little hurdles.
So that's what I try to do, is just to be that person who people can ask their questions to and not embarrassed. I always take people where they are and, and also I'm big about helping people realize that if they don't know these things, it's not because they're dumb or foolish or they weren't paying attention during class because.
There is not enough financial education out there. That's why I'm so excited to meet you. I love your little, uh, TikTok videos and you just like make it fun and, and empowering because I, I think that's what I realized is that this stuff isn't out there. You really have to seek it out. And I think kind of because of our consumerism culture, they not like a conspiracy theorist, but they want you to finance your car.
They want you. To buy more stuff, all these things. So you have to be a little bit off the beaten path to find this information. So that's a little bit about who I am and what I do. Well, I like
Anne-Lyse Wealth: what you said, financial information is not out there. You have to actually dig in. Similarly to you have a background in accounting.
I wouldn't say that when I graduated, I felt like I had personal finance knowledge. I actually had to educate myself. I think financial education is so important, but for some reason, like you said, it's almost like they don't want people to know the information so that they can just continue to live life in debt or
Lisa Schader: getting into debt.
Absolutely. Yeah, I realized that pretty soon. So the personal finance class that my husband and I took together, cuz we just happened to be, even though we were in different master's program, it was in the same school of business. So there was an elective of personal finance that we could take together.
So it wasn't even that. It was required. And also we just lucked out with an amazing teacher who was a former investment advisor and went back to get his doctorate for this exact reason, because he knew this is really basic information, but unless I go and I teach it, people aren't gonna know unless they go out and seek it.
And then after I graduated, I started to meet colleagues who had the same education I did, who didn't have that class, who were in. Debt. And that's when I realized that it is, it's, it's not out there, but it, it could be. And that's why I got excited about it because I try really hard to help people realize that it is basic.
If you're getting into a little bit of the weeds, if you're hitting some of the. Income limits for, you know what I mean? There are a little bit of weed. The thing is, is like there are resources. I think that's the biggest thing that I've learned also in just kind of starting this, is that you have to get over that factor of feeling.
Like if you don't know everything, then there's something wrong with you and not be afraid to ask questions. So if ever people hit a hard thing, I'm like, well, just consider talking to a C P A and they can resolve all this. Like this shouldn't be where you stop because you get confused.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: Absolutely. You and your husband became everyday millionaires,
Lisa Schader: as you say, right?
In 10 years. How
Anne-Lyse Wealth: old were you
Lisa Schader: then? We were 32, so yeah, I was 22 when we graduated from college and. Um, started working and then I was 32. And, and the term everyday millionaire, if not everyone's familiar with it, means that we weren't high income. We didn't become millionaires because we were making so much money that we just hit it So far, actually, I went back and looked up because when the pandemic hit, there were some resources for low income families here, and we live in the California Bay area, which is one of the most expensive areas of the country.
And I was looking at the income and I was like, wow, we would've qualified this for like, The first many years, five or six years that we were working and it's because I was staying at home with our kids for a part of that. And so we were living off of one salary. Like I said, we're not, not at national level of low income, but for our area because housing is so expensive and so that's why I say everyday millionaire because it really was, it wasn't that we had like so much money.
We really were like kind of nickel and di our way. To. Be able to make our four contributions, our Roth IRA contributions. I remember I would like literally was like making our own furniture. Wow. If I didn't, we weren't gonna buy it because our goal was to get to a 15% savings rate where we were saving an investing 15% of our income.
And I remember. For the first few years, we didn't even hit that. We didn't like, even though we were trying, like that's how close it was. So it wasn't like we just had so much money flowing in, hitting these. Investments was not that stressful, but that's why budgeting was so powerful because it allowed us to put money into the market and feel secure with what our living expenses were, if that makes sense.
Because I think if you're not aware of what your spending is, it's really nerve wracking to take it out of cash and put it into something that's less liquid. You know that. But because I had like a really firm. Grasp on what our spending was. We had an emergency fund for those times which we used. Like people think of a needing an emergency fund as like you've failed, but it just means life happens.
And so we went through completely through our emergency fund once, almost all the way through a second time because life happens. The emergency fund is there
Anne-Lyse Wealth: in case of emergency, right? I know that us too personally, we've gone through our emergency fine twice. Uh, we just had to rep replenish it, but just having it will save you from so much.
Financial trouble cuz you don't have to go into debt to face whatever financial issue that that's in front
Lisa Schader: of you. Right. Having that allowed us to have the confidence to put money away in investments without being too stressed that we wouldn't be able to pay the bills. Something that you said
Anne-Lyse Wealth: everyday, millionaire, if you don't mind me asking, what was your highest or ballpark, highest income during those
Lisa Schader: 10 years?
We only hit. Six figures once during that, like first five years it was, there was one year where we were both working. Before I started staying at home. But other than that, when we started, our income was probably, it was around like 60,000, which in most places of the country is like a good income. But here that was, that was low, considering not then, but now a home here, a modest.
Small home. We just sold our, uh, 1300 square foot home a couple years ago for over 900,000. Just to like put in context. Yeah. Those California prices. Right, right. It's insane. Plus, plus our state taxes are high, so 60,000 and a lot of places in the country is great. 60,000 here was like not much. But that being said, we also picked careers that.
We knew would grow over time. So my husband worked for, he wasn't an accountant, but he worked for an accounting firm where notoriously you're underpaid as on the lower part of the career. And then it builds to hopefully being able to reach a partner level. And so we knew it was a career that had. Income potential in the future, but at the beginning you're just, you're budgeting like anyone else just to make it by.
So that was kind of where our income was. So you said
Anne-Lyse Wealth: you only hit six figures a few times during those years. Is it like combined
Lisa Schader: or is it individual? Yeah, so combined and then after about maybe the sixth year, my husband's income went over a hundred thousand. So that's when we were able to like really.
Stamp up all of our investment and hit those with like a little more confidence without being so stressed. But it's really one of the biggest things I warn about is lifestyle inflation. And that basically just means where your lifestyle upgrades before faster than your income is. So that was something that we kept an eye on.
Um, so like I drove a 20 year old car up until. Like a few months ago, because that's why kind of, if you've ever heard the Millionaire next door Yes, yes, right. That's totally my grandparents' type. They just had, you know, my grandpa was a delivery man for milk, you know, a milk man, and they just always spent less than they earned and they maxed out.
Their retirement accounts, but they still live in the same modest home. Kind of like, you know, Warren Buffett's famous for, he lives in his same modest home that he bought forever Go. Obviously he could afford another one, but I think. Our income did go up, but when our income went up, our saving and investing went up more than our lifestyle did.
So not falling
Anne-Lyse Wealth: victim to the lifestyle creep, as they call it.
Lisa Schader: Right. Eventually it went up and that helped, but really I think it was the early investing because compound interest. I think that's what I like try to help people realize is that a little bit of sacrifice Now. It's not a dollar now for a dollar.
In the future because of investment returns, a dollar now will grow significantly over time. And that's, that's also one of the things I teach is that it's not about timing the market, it's about time. In the market. And so any moves you can make now to increase your investing, it's gonna make a difference in the long run.
And don't stress about where the market is that day. Like worry about if you have money left over to be investing. I
Anne-Lyse Wealth: love what you said about your combined income during that time that you were saving and investing aggressively before becoming millionaires. Because often the perception is that. The past millionaire status, especially that early in life only happened if you make six figures or 200,000, especially like in a, in a place like California where cost of living is so high, but you guys did it.
And I think that it can really motivate people to see that they can do that too. So, uh, I love that.
Lisa Schader: Right. Yeah, so eventually our income did go over a hundred thousand, but not till the later years. But that's why I do part of the financial I, I do what's called the Money Fit Challenge, and I walk people through, and one of the last things I do is to have people evaluate their career.
The truth is, you can make it on a small income forever, but if you have larger financial goals that making sure they're in a career or you have a side hustle or whatever it is that's gonna grow. Your income. That is something that you can do, but that is second to controlling your spending and making sure at whatever income level.
So yeah, absolutely. Watch your spending, saving, investing in, um, I think is more important than just making sure you always make more money. Because if you're spending, I, I think that's the biggest thing. I realize that you will spend. At your first salary, the same way you'll spend in the future. So if you're overspending at a lower salary and you've seen this, you know, with celebrities who've made and lost all their money, and you think, how is that possible?
They make millions. And it's because it doesn't matter how much you make. If you spend more than you make, you will never. Have money. And so I think that's also big that yes, it's like great to grow your income, but you still have to be watching your spending at least. Yeah. You have to track
Anne-Lyse Wealth: where that money's going.
Tell us more about how you guys did it. What did you invest in? What types of accounts did you use?
Lisa Schader: We mostly did 401k and then Roth IRAs, and really that was. For a long time, and we just did basic low cost index funds. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. For a while I think we were trying to get a little too, Not that we were trying to max our returns, but we were spending, I think, a little, much too much effort balancing out our portfolio personally.
Now, what I recommend for investing is I love the Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins, and he recommends low cost index funds, basically just the total US stock Market and bonds index. And the reason why is because then you're not paying really high fees. You're not losing 1% of your. Assets every year to management fees.
I think that is a wise strategy, but it is obviously a long-term strategy. This isn't like a day trading strategy. I'm definitely in the boat of a quote lazy investor where I put it in low cost index funds. Let them grow over time and leave it alone and occasionally check in to make sure. I have the right amount of stocks versus bonds for my age and retirement goals.
But yeah, we did pretty basic tracking the market basically. For listeners
Anne-Lyse Wealth: that might not be familiar with, uh, index funds, can you explain what they
Lisa Schader: are? Yeah, so index funds are just. Rather than holding individual stocks, it's has a whole group of stocks so that way you're not having to pick the hot stocks.
You're getting a little bit of everything. And if you have something that has the top s and p 500 or whatever, it's whatever the 500 to top stocks are. So the one that, uh, Collins recommends is the total US stock market, and he personally thinks that has enough exposure. Foreign investments and everything that it works, but mostly you can just look at the histories of funds like those.
And the reason why people like index funds is, is the low cost lens. Then you're not losing 1% of your. Your fee to paying a manager to buy and sell the stocks for you, it just tracks the market by itself and you're not paying the fee for that. It has some fees, but they are like a fraction of what you'd pay an investment advisor.
It saves money
Anne-Lyse Wealth: and it saves a lot of time because you don't have to every day looking at the stock market trying to figure out what is happening because you are in it for the long run. Right. I, I like that because a lot of people are afraid to invest in the stock market because they feel that they don't know enough, or they think that they have to pick individual stocks or they have to do options trading.
Or these days they think they have to buy, uh, bitcoins. So, uh, it looks like you didn't have to do any of that to get to millionaire status
Lisa Schader: in 10 years. Right. I didn't realize, I guess I've just been exposed to enough that it felt intuitive. And this was before I created Money Fit Moms. I overheard a conversation of someone who had sold a home and had a fair amount of gain on it, and they had just, they met someone who was a stock trader and they were asking, oh, like maybe you can tell us like what to invest in implying.
I think implying they wanted to find one hot stock. Meanwhile, they had been sitting on that money for years and not just leaving it in cash because they were looking for like big investment. And I think it was little conversations like this that made me realize that it, it's not out there. Just this basic idea of.
Putting it in the market and not stressing over the ups and downs as long as you're steadily adding more to your investments, that over time in the long term, I think that's why I always like to put some charts of. The history of the stock market, especially at times where it tanks and people lose their nerve and pull all their money out at the worst time.
Like if you try to invest by emotions, you're gonna do the exact opposite. You're going to buy high and sell low. And so I took a little, uh, risk quiz when I was, I sometimes will do betterment for just like my smaller. Investments. Like I invest, my husband and I have little money set aside to spend on whatever we want that we're not accountable to each other for, I am not really much of a spender, so I just started investing mine and, and it, uh, had a little risk tolerance quiz and it was like, what do you do when the market goes down?
And I say, you buy more. And it's like, oh, you like, you get it. But, but it's true. Like so many people get. Get all worked up about the market dropping, but you just have to zoom out and look at the big picture about what happens to the market over time and realize that I always say boring investing is good investing.
We're talking about long term. Leaving in the market, not trying to pick hot stocks and agonize over when to buy and sell them. Yeah. I
Anne-Lyse Wealth: think it makes it so much easier, right? When you pick like a total of stock market index fund, you know that when the market goes down, it will eventually go back up. You just have to sit back and be patient.
When you start start picking, you can, you have possibly opportunities to make more money, but you're also risking using more because now you are picking. Specific stocks. And if you look at 20 years ago, the stocks that were hot back then, they're not the hot stocks today. So are you sure that you're gonna pick the right ones?
So I, I think it, it really depends on your tolerance level for risk and how much time you're willing to dedicate to this exercise.
Lisa Schader: Right, exactly. Just like you,
Anne-Lyse Wealth: I, I would rather just, uh, do low cost index funds and focus on something
Lisa Schader: else. Right? Yeah, absolutely. And I think some people to them, Day trading is like their hobby in life and more power to them.
But I have other priorities. You know, I wanna travel, I wanna spend time with my kids. I want to stay in shape, have time to do what I want rather than agonizing over the best way to make this the most money. So that's why I, I really like just sort of the simple path to wealth. Spend less than you earn, invest the rest and avoid debt is, I didn't learn that.
Phrase until last year, but that is absolutely what we did, and it works and it's the easy way. You know what I mean? It's not easy in that it takes discipline, but it doesn't take a huge amount of financial knowledge or. Awareness of stock market valuations, or I didn't read a single company p and l to analyze how their stock was valued or anything.
I just worried about, okay, do we need to adjust our spending because these are our financial goals. This is how much we want to be saving and investing each year. That's where I spent my time and it totally paid off.
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So earlier you mentioned that you were pretty frugal. You said that you guys had to make some sacrifices, but can you talk more about it? What are some of the things that you had to sacrifice to get to your goal in 10 years? And what are some of the tricks you use to help you stay focused on
Lisa Schader: the goal?
When my husband and I were in college, we were definitely living on love, so we had to pay master's tuition, which was significant. So we both, during college had, I think I had two jobs and my husband had three part-time jobs. We were working when we. When we'd go out on date nights, it was like to the dollar movie.
I think one day when we were feeling really spendy, we got a dessert that was takeout, save on tips. But it was good because we didn't have money. I think a lot of times people think of student loan as having income and it's not the same thing. We saw it for what it was. We saw it as a debt that we would have to pay and we know.
The less we spent, the sooner we we'd be able to pay it off. So we were able to pay it off right out of school before any interest started accruing. That's amazing because we went to a program that was relatively low cost compared to a lot of 'em, but was still a really reputable program. We worked really hard and we slept on an air mattress one summer that we were doing an internship because we didn't wanna like rent to bed.
And that one, I regret that one. I say I was too. So there is such a thing as being too cheap, but we were realistic about the fact that we didn't have money and we packed our lunches and we drove old cars, avoided debt. That was definitely something for my grandparent. My grandma is 90 and still going strong.
She grew up in the depression era, so her motto was, use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without. I remember growing up. Hearing that. So that was kind of the mentality we had. Granted, I say all this, I am not trying to shame people who do have a car loan or do have debt. That's not the attitude I wanna have.
Most of the people that I work with do have a car loan and that one debt they have to work on paying off. So I say all this joking about how cheap we were, but really we were fortunate in that that is something that I kind of. Grew up internalizing, but I realized that most people taking control of their finances may not have had that messaging.
And it's gonna take some adjustment and it's painful and it's embarrassing when we realize that we've been living beyond our means. But that being said, it only hurts I think, for about. Two or three months, and then I think you adjust. And also, one thing I encourage people to do that I regret not doing along this path, cuz I think it would've been more motivating and it would've felt more meaningful.
These sacrifices we're making is tracking your net worth.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: Well, anyone that might not be familiar with the term net worth, it's essentially, Your assets, everything that you own minus your liabilities, everything that you owe.
Lisa Schader: We weren't doing that. That's why I said I never bothered to calculate our net worth until I started Money Fit Moms.
Cuz I was like, I don't think anyone's gonna listen to me. The reason why I encourage people to track their net worth is because a lot of times people are really only looking at their cash accounts. Right? Because, or their credit cards, cuz that's the stuff that they see. On a daily basis is their savings account, their checking account, and their credit cards.
And they may occasionally check their retirement accounts, but a lot of people don't see the big picture. And I think that's why debt is so. Tempting because it feels like winning because you get to keep the money and you get the car and it feels like, oh, it's a win. I have more money because I didn't spend it on this car.
But I think if you're tracking your net worth, right, you see the big picture. And so I think that would've helped me feel like it was a little more worthwhile because I would've seen how our investment accounts were growing. I was looking at the ira. That I started and I remember exactly the room I was in when I first opened it, and I remember feeling so embarrassed and having to try to pick a fund.
I was so nervous and thinking you have a master's in tax. Like at, at that time I was passing the CPA exams and, and I was thinking, and I'm intimidated to do this, like I can't imagine. How other people would feel. But yeah, I think that was the, the key is that we were watching our spending and sometimes like funny and.
Embarrassing ways, driving old cars. Um, I remember one time I actually had repressed this memory cause it was so embarrassing until people were sharing their funny stories and we were driving this really old car that actually we still have, it's like 24 years old. I remember driving home from a, a, um, road trip and we had to like pull over every 20 minutes cuz the car was overheating and we had to like pour water to.
Cooler. That was like our life. I think a lot of times people think of like millionaires as this just fabulous people driving nice cars all the time cuz they're super wealthy and those people are the exception. I think there's also people who look rich, look wealthy, and there's the people who actually have wealth because they manage their spending and they don't buy all the nice toys.
And, and that being said, when you live, like no one can, you can live like no one will like now. We are comfortable, but it's because those sacrifices at the beginning and because of compound interest and investing along the way, we were living in a small home. With kids, but at the same time, like I definitely think that we were just as happy then as we are now, if you're not having your basic needs met.
Absolutely. Like making more money changes people's lives, but once you reach a certain level where your basic needs are being met, I think it's about so much more. Then money. I so agree with it. Yeah. Save and invest. Live a good life, but also make the world a better place. And that's something I also teach people who are in that fortunate position where all their needs are being met, that there's still reasons to make sure that you are investing and maximizing your wealth.
Cause then you can build what you give other people as well. So someone that I was coaching, she's actually a VP of finance. Super smart. Woman and she just was in that position where they probably had too much cash and she just didn't really see a reason to put it into the market. And then I started asking her questions about, if you could start, um, something to make the world a better place, what would it be?
And it turns out she had this amazing idea for building, basically a resource center where people volunteered their services to help build businesses for people who have. Less advantaged backgrounds and who are wanting to turn their life and their family's life around by building their own businesses.
And it was this amazing idea and I was like, yes. Like you can create that with the money that you are building, even though you're meeting your needs, there's still like more you can do. And so that's why it's like the sky's the limit in terms of. Reasons to do these few basic things to make sure you are tracking your finances and making the most of it.
There's your family. And then also when you get beyond that point, there's other things you can do to make the world a better place. So many
Anne-Lyse Wealth: jams you shared. I do think that tracking your net worth is very important and understanding your why. Are gonna be key to keeping you focused on your wealth building journey.
So I'm glad you highlighted those things. You talked about your grandparents and the knowledge that you gained from them. Can you tell us more about your childhood and the type of financial education you
Lisa Schader: received as a child? So that was my dad. Parents, they grew up, my grandpa grew up on a farm. And then left the farm, but still became a dairy delivery man.
So didn't go to college, but still super hardworking, super smart. Amazing salt of the earth people who were just made smart financial choices basically in not taking on debt and maximizing their investments and then just lived modestly and then they raised kids who kind of were able to take that to the next generation
Anne-Lyse Wealth: generational wealth.
I'm so glad you are bringing up that topic because sometimes we think that it. Absolutely means millions of dollars. But part of generational wealth is the financial habits, the financial education, the knowledge, the habits that you transmit to your children, and of course also the wealth that you were able to build along the way.
But sometimes it starts with knowledge. And in your case here you are a couple of generations down, still building on your
Lisa Schader: grandparents' legacy. This is why I think, unfortunately, a lot of wealth is generational because it's not, I think so much about the money as the knowledge that gets passed on from generation to generation.
So I was fortunate in that my dad became an accountant. And that was the part I internalized. Well, first of all, I had my first investment account before I graduated from college because my dad was self-employed and part of what his investment plan was to have a SEP ira. Mm-hmm. As a self-employment plan, it's similar to a 401k for someone who works for.
A big company, but it's for small businesses and part of the requirements of that is you have to contribute the same amount for your employees that you do for yourself. And so all of his employees, and I was one of his employees, I was doing bookkeeping work for him, and I loved, I loved bookkeeping, I loved QuickBooks and helped big companies do their books.
So I started to gain financial knowledge. And meanwhile he's telling me like, Hey, I'm paying you this much an hour, but only a portion of it is gonna go into your checking account. The rest is gonna go into this investment plan. I love that. So I was like, oh, okay. Like I guess that's okay. And that's when I started realize like, oh, okay, like if you put money aside and don't keep it all in cash and put it aside in investments.
It adds up. And then because my dad was an accountant, he just sort of gave me gems where he just helped me realize that it wasn't all about looking wealthy, that there were people who were kind of slaves to their lifestyle in that they lived a certain way, they felt pressure to always continue to live a certain way with high expenses.
And then because of that income fluctuates or you lose jobs or whatever. They ended up having really very little. To show for it and they were stressed. And then there were the families who actually had a fair amount of money and they were living in modest homes, but they were also really happy because they weren't so stressed.
I think those were the things I took away. We were definitely, I grew up in a middle class, I would say, but also this like really sound financial advice. Those
Anne-Lyse Wealth: are financial lessons that most people learn. Later in life, maybe after getting burned a few times. So it's great that you were able to learn those financial lessons from your parents and grandparents early
Lisa Schader: on.
My mom grew up very poor in downtown Cleveland and so I think she, to this day, she's very generous with everyone else but herself. She was just calling my husband the other day for IT support cuz she still has a computer that's over a decade old. Telling my husband, we just need to like buy her a new computer cuz she won't ever do it for herself as long as she can get this thing to hop along.
So, That is kind of my heritage is people who grew up with not a lot, but had some sound financial principles that they kind of learned through their parents. And so that's something we passed on to our kids. So we have a day where they get their quote allowance and they have ways that they have to contribute to the household and everything.
But then we're actually working on starting to open their investment accounts because we have been having them save. They have to set aside, 20% what they get. And so I was telling my husband, I'm like, we should just invest this so they can start to see over time how that money grows. And so we're trying to like pass it on.
To the next generation. So I think every generation has just taken it a step further in terms of financial knowledge. It's interesting what you
Anne-Lyse Wealth: said about opening an investment account for your children so they can see the impact of their money growing. My children are young. My oldest is six, but just opening high yield savings account for her and her going to the bank every quarter to.
Review the interest and then deposit. She realized that just by leaving her money in a bank account, it was growing. It's not growing by much cuz it's not invested. But that was kind of like a light bulb moment for her. And I think it's those little things that really make a
Lisa Schader: difference. Absolutely. That's what I say.
There's people who. Pay interest and those who earn interest. You wanna be the earning interest side for sure. Absolutely. I'm really passionate
Anne-Lyse Wealth: about this, uh, topic or financial literacy for kids. I actually wrote a book on this because I noticed that often people focus on how to build wealth, but they forget to raise financially savvy children.
I'm so glad you were able to get that knowledge from your parents and, and your grandparents, and I'm sure that contributed a ton in you getting to where you are
Lisa Schader: today. And that's amazing that you're writing a book cuz I find that that is what a lot of people ask. They say, how can I teach my kids? And so I think you're addressing exactly people's concern by helping them pass this on.
And I do believe the most important thing you're gonna pass on to your kids are your values. So that's
Anne-Lyse Wealth: awesome. What has been the best money move you've
Lisa Schader: made? I think that's it. Just basically, Starting to investing and not getting afraid to put money into the market, and I think that's the biggest gap that people need to bridge.
I think people understand that they need to budget or that they need to watch their spending, but I think that's the biggest bridge to build, is to go from saving money to investing that money, I think is the one key. That people can get and do it in tax advantaged accounts. I think a lot of people, when they hear investing, they automatically think of opening a taxable investment account.
But definitely start with the, your 401k, get the employer. There's all these ways that you can make it count for even more by taking advantage of tax advantaged accounts. So don't stop at just saving, put it somewhere where it can work for you. Stop putting money places where it costs you money and start putting money in places where it will grow for you without you having to do anything.
And so I think that was hopefully like a light bulb moment for them about, I
Anne-Lyse Wealth: love that. So for anyone listening who's interested in building wealth, what are the key steps that they can take right now to start on that
Lisa Schader: path? I created the Money Fit Challenge so people can follow along with that. So if they wanna join that, they can find me at Money Fit Moms and it has links to it or they can just message me cuz I love walking through it.
And the very first thing I tell people to start doing is to start tracking their net worth and then start budgeting. Make sure they have money left over to invest it cuz it's the basic three part formula. Spend less than you earn, invest the rest, avoid debt. But if you do have debt, the first thing you should do is pay that off as fast as you can.
Do it like there's a fire under you, because the faster you can pay off debt, the sooner you can get to the fun part of investing. So depending on where they are with debt, either pay off the debt. Or work on increasing your saving and investing rate would be the first thing. Those
Anne-Lyse Wealth: are great tips, and I'm so glad you highlighted the importance of paying off debt.
Because if you have high interest rate debt, then you probably won't be able to get a return in the stock market. That will make up for what you would be paying in, uh, interest. So if you have debt that's 6% or higher, you know, take advantage of your 401K match and things like that. But anything above the match, it's probably wise to put it towards your debt.
That will go a long way. Are you ready for a round of rapid fire questions? Okay. A book that change your perspective on life.
Lisa Schader: The Simple Path, the Wealth by JL College. And why is that? I loved it because he had a basic investment plan that anyone could do, and if I knew that book existed, I would've been just handing that out like crazy.
So whenever someone says they wanna learn more about investing, that's the book I recommend. It's a great book.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: One thing about money you wish you could tell your younger self.
Lisa Schader: Start tracking your net worth
Anne-Lyse Wealth: best investment in yourself you ever
Lisa Schader: made. Getting my master's degree. Fill in the blanks
Anne-Lyse Wealth: in three words or less.
Money to me is
Lisa Schader: freedom, empowerment, and security. Nice. What do you want your legacy to be? Making the world a better place. Mm-hmm. So,
Anne-Lyse Wealth: uh, what's next for you and, and where can listeners find you?
Lisa Schader: So the next thing is I'm running this money Fit challenge this year, taking people through things step by step.
And they can find me on Facebook and Instagram under Money Fit Moms if they wanna follow along, because it's amazing how much better and easier everything is when you do it as a community and, and then my goal for that eventually is just to be able to create, um, A course basically, or, or even just to continue to cycle through this every year because there's things like creating a will we get as far as asset protection measures.
And so I'm thinking if we cycle through this every year, then it can just be an opportunity to. Check in on these things even if you've already set them up. So that's my hope is that people will stick with money fit moms as a way to feel empowered and feel like they're always on top of those little things that they need to do to keep their finances in check.
Well, Lisa,
Anne-Lyse Wealth: it's been a pleasure to have you. Thank you for coming on the podcast and, uh, I'll have all of this information in
Lisa Schader: the show notes. Awesome. Thank you so much. It was such a pleasure to talk to you soon. Thank you.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: That was Lisa Shader, everybody. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I enjoyed.
Recording it. Thank you for listening to today's episode of the Dreamers podcast. You can find today's show notes and all of the links mentioned during the episode@dreamoflegacy.com. If you enjoy today's episode, here's what you can do to support me and help more dreamers discover the podcast. Leave a review on Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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All right. I will see you here next Monday for another episode of the Dreamers podcast. Coming up next week on the podcast, we have five times bestselling author, TV contributor, and founder of Part Place Payments, Samantha edis in March. We also have business coach and Instagram Sensation El. Digital business strategist and podcast host Selwa AJ pe, digital marketing expert, Kathleen Salman and financial literacy educator, Lawrence Gonzalez.
Lisa Schader: Okay. Build this legacy. This podcast is for general information purposes only. It is not intended to provide any tax, legal, financial planning, insurance, accounting, investment, or any other kind of professional advice or services. Please consult with an appropriate tax, financial, or legal professional to receive appropriate advice based on your situation.