Show 1 - The Key to Financial Success

Show Transcript

Welcome to the Teacher money show the podcast dedicated to helping Educators like yourself navigate your unique Financial challenges and unlock your financial superpowers. I'm your host Shaun Morgan a full-time teacher and entrepreneur and I'm here to help teachers navigate everything related to your money. Whether you have questions about budgeting on a teacher's salary managing student loans increasing your income or making the most of your benefits. I'm here to make money less confusing more empowering and a tool you can use to focus on what matters most. So whether you're a seasoned teacher looking for fresh insights or a new educator navigating your first paycheck this podcast is your go-to resource for all things money related. So if you're ready to have a richer wallet classroom and life let's Dive In. [Music] The contents of this podcast are informational in nature and are not legal or tax advice and neither I nor my guests are engaged in the provision of legal tax or any other advice. You should not act upon this information without first seeking appropriate advice from an accountant financial planner lawyer or other professional.

Welcome to the first episode of the teacher money show. You might be wondering what's the teacher money show all about? well that's what we're here to talk about today uh my name is Shaun Morgan and I'm a teacher just like you. I teach full-time uh I've taught in three different states uh four actually now and uh taught in four different schools so I've moved around a lot. I've been in mostly Middle School classrooms teaching social studies and that's that's where my passion is in education but my other passion is in money. I really feel like understanding money is one of the most empowering things that anyone can understand and especially so for teachers and the reason for that is for two reasons.

The first reason is because teachers are paid criminally low right we know this we get underpaid uh all the time everywhere you are you're being underpaid even if you make more than other teachers you probably live in a higher cost of living place so you're you're underpaid and when you're underpaid one of the first things that you can do to make sure that isn't a huge detriment to your life is understanding how money works.

The other reason uh why I'm passionate about this is because teachers can then teach their students about money and if all of the teachers were financially literate then all of their students would in theory also be financially literate and that could have a huge impact on our society.

So that's my my why I want to help teachers who are underpaid and just struggling to hold on and I want to help the future generation. Sounds like a lot. Well why am I doing this? well let me tell you my story so I started teaching in Utah as my very first year teaching I hadn't even done a student teaching because student teaching is an option in Utah you can instead do something called interning and as an intern you are the teacher of record in that classroom and you have no one else in there with you and you teach for a whole year but you're an intern so they pay you half salary. Yeah it was well below minimum wage for all the hours I put in um but I I was putting in my time I figured some money was better than no money so I just wanted to do that and I don't like being told what to do so I didn't want to have somebody else in there telling you what to do.

Anyway uh I was excited because I figured hey after the end of this my income is going to double if I'm getting paid half salary now my income will be twice as much later. Well I ended up moving to Colorado which I'm sad to say for all you Coloradans is a criminally low paying State teachers it is uh disturbing how low they pay teachers in Colorado for how expensive it is especially. So my income that I thought was going to double went from Seventeen hundred dollars a month to twenty one hundred dollars a month take-home pay. Now of course there's money going into my pension there's money going for my health insurance there's money going uh to taxes and such uh but $400 increase instead of the doubling was painful and um based on my income and what I told my my lenders they told me I could afford a mortgage that was with uh principal interest taxes insurance and mortgage insurance on top of that uh $1,050 a month so half of all of my money was going towards my uh housing.

I was stuck I couldn't make enough money teaching so I figured I needed a second job so I get a second job. It's still not quite cutting it so then I remember oh you just need a master's degree that's why I'm not being paid enough I need a master's degree. So I bust out a master's degree through an online program in five months not my favorite time to be alive I do not recommend it uh but I did it and I was so proud of myself and I missed the pay increase deadline by a month.

So I'd done all that work I put all that money into it and I didn't really even receive the benefits and it's at this point where I'm struggling to make ends meet that I discover entrepreneurship I start a notary business and that starts doing well it starts helping me support myself I start discovering um finance and learning about that and I start doing better. I'm still not making enough to survive in Colorado so I have to move I moved to Texas it was a fantastic move I love living in Texas that's where I still live I get a job there and things are going better. I'm still doing notary work I'm still I've got I get a higher paying job so I'm starting to be able to put money aside I start investing some money and then I lose my job last one hired first one fired it it happens.

But then I found a new job and it's an online job and I I love teaching online now I love where I'm I'm working um so it's a happy ending for me in that regard and I've been slowly able to take steps to increase my income but I'm still running side hustles I run multiple side hustles I'm still struggling in a lot of instances because Insurance costs um you know and there's always something that's a struggle everywhere you go right now my struggle is that my my insurance premium is uh High and the uh the total out of pocket cost for the year is basically uh only helpful if I end up being hospitalized for weeks on end so there's always going to be a struggle. But because I have good financial principles I am able to survive and that's what I'm I'm here to to help you with.

So whether you feel like you're being robbed by taxes your your benefits that you're paying for or your forced pension at 20 or 30 percent of your gross pay or you uh feel like you're making less money after you get a raise but then your insurance costs increase every single year so you're not really making any more money or you have to wake up extra early or stay extra late for a side job or if you're taking on extra duties just to earn a few extra bucks or you're paying to take classes to earn more money. If you're struggling with all of these things that's where we're here to talk about how we can really make a difference in our financial life which will Ripple throughout the rest of our life as well as Educators.

That that's my story and I hope that by sharing this story and by talking to each of you we'll be able to help each other grow and understand more about our finances as teachers and how we can take control of our financial lives. So I wanted to talk about a few things that are Bedrock to our understanding of personal finance just the very basic things that we need to know in order to take control of our finances. Everything else that we're going to talk about is adding on top of it it's building blocks but this is the foundation and that is your money mindset.

You must have a growth money mindset now I know that we're talk we're tired of talking about fixed mindset growth mindset like we all have the same posters hanging up in our schools fixed mindset growth mindset and and we're probably tired of talking about it but we know it actually matters and if you believe that you can grow your money if you believe that you can be good with money if you believe that you can make what you have work then you're going to be able to succeed.

If you believe that there's no way that teachers can get ahead then you're not going to succeed. So the first thing to realize is your mindset is important. We need to have a growth money mindset.

If every teacher learned how to manage their money low salaries would no longer be a concern now of course we still want to make more money I'm not going to say that having a ten thousand dollar a year salary is fine if you have a good mindset naturally we need incomes to to keep up with our with inflation and things like that but many concerns that teachers have could be solved by learning how to manage their money much more than a salary increase. If you receive five thousand more dollars next year would that really change your life? It won't change your life unless you learn how to manage your money.

Okay so what I hope to do is help you pay control of your money mindset so that way you can do two things:

1) Make your paycheck last longer than a month and 2) control the timing of your exit from teaching. Your paycheck needs to last longer than a month because that's the only way that you're going to be able to start stockpiling money. You need to control your exit from teaching because with the way things are going you're either going to lose your job I lost my job uh probably because of some crazy dumb thing someone said on some online forum and the school is covering their rear end I know a few people that have lost their job for that which bothers me to no end. Or you could control your exit from teaching because you know you need to go right? How many of us know that person who says oh I've just got eight more years I've just got six more years I just got two more years until my pension I can hold on I can just barely keep my fingers on until the end.

We don't want those kinds of people to be our teachers we want people who want to be here. We want people who are excited and have that fire and have that passion for teaching and if you lose that pass passion for teaching then it's time to go.

Alright we want to make sure that our teachers are the best they can be for the students. So keeping control of your finances lets you control when you exit teaching on the other hand if you aren't controlling your finances you might hold on to your pension and then your pension isn't enough and you keep holding on and substituting and I don't want you to be substituting when you're 90 years old okay? Let's just let's let's avoid that we all know that sub who really shouldn't be subbing anymore they need to to be done. So that's what I mean by controlling your exit from teaching.

And if we can do these things if you can control your money sideway you can start stockpiling and growing and if you can uh control your timing from your exit from teaching then we can really make a difference in the lives of our students both in their education and in their financial life because you will know the skills to teach them how to be financially successful and you will be a role model for them to be financially successful. It will make a huge impact.

So how are we going to do this? Well the podcast. We're going to talk about find foundational principles and ideas that are going to help you with your finances and individual coaching uh the unique format that I hope to bring to this podcast is being able to talk to you yes you I don't know who you are yet but I want to so if you have a money question if you are struggling with your finances if you're doing well with your finances but you want to know what to do with it if you are unsure what your pension means if you are trying to figure out how you're going to make more money I don't care what your question is about money come on the show and we'll do a one-on-one coaching session, okay?

Now you know complete disclosure I'm going to publish it and everyone's going to hear it but you don't have to reveal your name no one has to see you if you absolutely don't want to and we can make it as Anonymous as is in your best interest. I would highly recommend that you are open and honest because say a friend of yours here's this podcast they can come talk to you you guys can now work together you know that there's someone else who has that Financial mind that wants to work together but once again it's up to you.

I will do everything I can to make you comfortable so you can come on this podcast and get free coaching free coaching for you so you can overcome your unique challenges and as we hear individual stories and individual challenges together we will become better. So that's uh one unique thing that I hope to bring to this podcast. I'll also uh occasionally just jump on with basic financial principles that we all need to know just by myself and then I'll also have uh guests on who are uh just experts in their field ready to teach us about finances and everything that we're going to talk about has to do with finances for teachers specifically.

How many of you are tired of uh hearing something that has nothing to do with being a teacher they say oh just go ask for a raise. Yeah when's the last time that worked for a teacher? Or uh do get overtime? Overtime doesn't really if you know we do over time all the time without extra pay right it's just that's how it goes it seems like. There's so many things that we can't do as teachers because of the way our profession is set up but there's so many beautiful and Powerful things that we can do with our money if we only understand them.

So that's what we're going to talk about we're going to talk specifically to teachers and how you can uh just nail it on your finances so those those are the three things we're going to be doing individual coaching learning the basics of money for for teachers and talking to experts about how you can just nail it on your finances.

Okay so now that we understand the the premise of the show we understand the mission we understand my story where do you get started? Well here's the first basic principle I want you to know. The first step is to track your spending. If you don't know how much is coming in and how much is going out every single month there is no way that you can succeed there's no way you can improve there's no way that you can know what you need to do to control your money.

So I want you to ask these questions two questions: Do I know where I spend my money each month? Do I feel in control of where my money goes? If you cannot answer those questions that you know where you are spending your money and you feel in control you definitely need to track your spending which is as far as I'm concerned everybody.

Track your spending! track your spending! It is so powerful.

So why? Why do we need tracker spending? Well let me try and prove it to you if you aren't convinced already data leads to Improvement. I know that data is a buzzword you're probably tired of hearing it but it's true if we actually use data correctly then it will lead to Improvement. If it's what we want it to improve on or not is another story that we can talk about some other time but uh if you use data you'll lead to Improvement.

Pearson's law states when performance is measured performance improves when performance is measured and reported back the rate of improvement accelerates. I'm going to say that again: when performance is measured performance improves when performance is measured and reported back the rate of improvement accelerates.

So you are measuring your performance by writing it down type it in something whatever you are measuring how well you're doing on your spending and then highly recommend you uh share it with a partner share it with a friend if you don't have a partner share it with your mom share it with your dog I don't care just make sure you are get getting accountability your dog's probably not a good choice but uh if you need an accountability partner send me an email I will happily talk to you about how well you are doing as often as you send me an email.

Okay there are three ways that you can track your spending. If you're like okay I get it I need to track my spending I need to know where my money's going but how do I do it? Well there's the old school pen and paper method where you are just writing down this much went out in this category this much in that category and so forth so but I do because I do the old school pen and paper method that's what I like because when I write it down like it feels more painful than I'm spending it so it's I'm less likely to spend more because if I'm just doing a a spreadsheet it doesn't have the same power. You English teachers understand there's something about a book versus a an e-book it's the same principle here.

So I have categories I have a food I have major bills I have household expenses I have gas those are my main spending categories I I'm trying to break apart my household expenses category right now uh just because it's kind of large um but I wouldn't recommend more than six categories because then you just get overwhelmed.

So you just write down how much goes out of each of those categories um you just you know say this expensive household this expenses food that's gas Etc or whatever you you choose your categories to be and then you write down all your income every time you bring money in I don't care if it's a gift from your grandma that's money coming in and then you calculate your income you calculate your expenses, income minus expenses, is it positive or is it negative?

Now this is this is math but this is math so easy I think even our English teachers here can do this. No offense English teachers I I teach English too actually um but I every time I talk to an English teacher they say I'm not a math teacher so I just math so easy and English teacher can do it is is something I think is funny.

But it's simple right you're just adding subtracting that's it and if it's positive you're doing good if it's negative you need to work on it, okay? And you look did I spend too much on food did I spend too much on household what household item do I spend too much on uh Chia Pets I don't know what it whatever it is that you're spending too much money on that's what you cut back on how do you know if it's too much if you are like wow I can't believe I spent that much money on it that's probably the thing that's too much.

Digital you can also put it on an Excel spreadsheet that's another easy way to track the key there is remembering to do it uh and then you can use an app such as Mint or every dollar um I I'm not sponsored by either of them they're just famous one's and you attach your your cards or your accounts or whatever and every time you spend money it just says oh you spent money what category was that in and it'll throw it into those categories and then it'll determine if you've exceeded your budget on that category or not.

Okay so that is that that's the basics. If you do that if you listen to nothing else on this podcast and you just track your spending and make sure that that number stays positive you'll be okay. You won't be amazing necessarily if you don't you know invest it or do anything like that but you'll be okay.

So remember your money is mostly mindset if you can get your mindset right if you can believe that you can succeed you can do it. If you track your spending that's the best place to start you will start having Improvement Pearson's law will kick in and you can choose whatever method is best for you that's it.

So here's my invitation to you today start tracking your spending. Create your categories Choose Your tracking method record every time you spend and receive money. Keep in mind this is not making a budget. I don't want you to predict how much you're going to spend on each category I don't care neither should you because if you predict I'm going to spend 400 on food this month and then you spend 1200 on food you're gonna be like oh this is terrible I'm such a terrible budgeter oh no I don't want to do this ever again and and that's that's not good okay? We don't want to give up because we do our budgeting incorrectly.

Tracking your spending is the first step to having a successful budget. Budgeting is not the first step. It's just like going on a diet. Now diet is the word that nobody likes to hear and that's because usually you try it and then you fail okay? But counting your calories, that works. People who count to calories tend to lose weight people who go on a diet tend to not because counting your calories is not viewing uh through this restrictive lens if you have to do this this and this it's just oh I've eaten this many calories today I should probably stop I spend this much money this month I should probably stop it's the same principle.

So before you have a plan of what you're going to do in place you need to know what you're doing right now and that's the first step is tracking your spending.

Alright there we go we have it your invitation start tracking your spending create your categories Choose Your tracking method record every time you spend and receive money and my other invitation to you is come on the podcast let's have a coaching session I would love to talk to you and remember you are already rich as an educator your wallet just needs to catch up

if you like to come on the podcast for coaching to share an expert opinion or just to talk about a topic you think is relevant I'd love to talk to you just fill out the form at teachermoneyshow.com/Guest I look forward to talking with you