Young Scrappy Money Podcast Ep. 035: From World Traveler to Six-Figure Freelancer with Sarah Li Cain

podcast Feb 16, 2020

Sarah Li Cain of the Beyond the Dollar Podcast shares her journey from digital nomad to six-figure freelancer, along with some incredible wisdom on raising financially savvy kids, recovering from burnout, and more.

Resources from this episode: 

Full transcript:

INTRO: [00:00:00] Hello. And welcome to the Young Scrappy Money podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Waymire. And each week, I’ll be bringing you tips and tricks to help you take control of your finances as well as interviews with people who made big financial changes in their own lives. So join us. And we’ll help you get your financial s**t together. 

MICHELLE: Hello, everybody, and welcome, welcome to another episode of the Young Scrappy Money Podcast. I’m really excited about today’s guest, because this is somebody I’ve known for a long time, through the personal finance space. We met at the same money nerd conference, FinCon, which I’m sure you all have heard me talk about a couple of times at this point. It’s it’s gotten a shout out more than once. Yay, FinCon. So we met at FinCon and this guest has a really interesting story. She spent plenty of time living working overseas. She’s now a personal finance writer here in the United States. She has a lot of really wonderful thoughts on sort of balancing work and life and the way that money plays into all of those things together. And so I’ve been wanting to interview her for a long time, and let’s do it. Today with me is Sarah Li-Cain. She is a finance writer and the host of Beyond the Dollar podcast. Her work has appeared in places like Bankrate, Business Insider, Redbook, the Financial Planning Association, Stacking Benjamins and the HerMoney podcast with Jean Chatzky who was like, my personal finance idol. So that’s rad. Sarah, thank you so much for coming on today. I’m really excited to hear a little bit more about your story and your insights into the magical world of money.

SARAH: Well, thank you so much for having me on. I’m really excited to be here.

MICHELLE: So I think let’s just get right to it. Tell us a little bit more about your story. How did you get involved in the personal finance space?

SARAH: So to answer your question about the personal finance space: very accidentally. I did not care about money for the longest time, until I think I was forced to. So I’m originally from Canada, I grew up there. And I decided at a very young age I wanted to travel overseas. And so this was before digital nomad like you can work from your laptop anywhere like that. And so I remember meeting a teacher in high school. And she actually ended up doing I think a teacher exchange in Spain, plus I knew a couple of Australian teachers who did the same thing that came to Canada and so I thought, okay, that’s it. That’s what my career is going to be: I’m going to be a teacher. And so I got a teaching degree in English and visual arts because I figured English was a nice popular subject. Everybody needs an English teacher. And so I bought a one way ticket to Australia, when I graduated and never looked back, basically. So I was a teacher for about 10 years. I also lived in China and South Korea for a while, and then I met my husband in China. And he’s from the US, and so we made the decision back in 2016, so about three years ago now, to move to the US. And so during that time, I was really trying to figure out if I wanted to stay in teaching, because I didn’t know if I had to go through this big process to get my paperwork all sorted for my teaching license. And so I transitioned to freelance writing, just to kind of see if I could do it. I was like, I’ll give myself six months to see if I could do it. And I haven’t looked back since.

MICHELLE: That’s amazing. First of all, 10 years as a teacher, that’s a huge accomplishment. In my first job out of college, I taught theatre and I made it one whole year. So whenever I meet anybody who has taught more than one whole year, I am, I am automatically impressed.

SARAH: It’s hard. It is, and I love teaching. It’s a wonderful profession. And it’s one of those where if I had the opportunity to go back, if the conditions were favorable, I guess you can say I would, Part of what kept me there was the fact that I was overseas. And by that, I mean I love traveling so much that I was willing to take any career. Luckily, I love teaching, right? But any career to be able to do that.

MICHELLE: Yeah, for sure. So, Australia, China, South Korea… what was it like living and working overseas?

SARAH: It was different in each country. So Australia was just a fun country. It was pretty pricey. I’d say like the equivalent of maybe living in New York or LA, and so it was great because I wasn’t a full time teacher. I was doing subbing… Australians are really into hiring other Australians, naturally, so I didn’t really get the contracts I was hoping to get and so I was working in a recruiting agency and I was subbing and it was great. I mean, I loved it. The weather was beautiful. I ended up getting a transferred across the country,  paid to basically fly to another part of Australia and live there. And it was, it was just really my first experience living on my own. And I wasn’t very good with money then I’ll, I’ll admit that now. And so I ended up going back to Canada broke, I didn’t have a job and I was just trying to figure out my way around.

South Korea and China were also great. So I’m gonna say generally, if you work in Asia, and depending on the contract you get, you get really taken care of. Like, it was really really difficult to leave my job in China. Just some of the perks: we all got free housing. We had a stipend. So the the stipend actually ended up paying for most of our utilities. I got like, I think 16 weeks paid holiday, we got flight back and forth to the US and Canada every year. I mean, like I walked to work, it was like it was just a really great contract and I love the kids. So yeah.

MICHELLE: That’s awesome. What a neat experience. What was your favorite part of living abroad?

SARAH (00:06:07): 
I think one of the best things was that it really taught me to stick up for myself. So living in China was exhilarating and very, very difficult. Part of it was because I am Asian and so there were a lot of difficulties with that were locals just didn’t understand like, why was I considered a foreigner when I didn’t look foreign? Why did I only speak English and not Chinese? And so it was like a lot of having to stick up for myself in those cases, even little things like going to the post office and having to mail a package, something that would take us probably 10 minutes depending on how long the line is in the US would have taken me 45 minutes in China. And so it was, it got to the point where I’m like, I’m just being too nice. Straight up, I have to just start being really… I don’t want to say pushy, there were some moments I’m not proud. I’m not gonna lie like, I’m not like going to yell and like, kind of fight my way through things. But it really taught me to stand up for myself and it really also taught me to be a lot more hyper aware of situations and just to appreciate the little things. I remember in Korea, with a bunch of friends we went to this supermarket and they had pickles, like dill pickles, it was like $7 a jar, but I was so happy to see those pickles. I was missing home. And so now I hate them. But back then I don’t even get pickles very often. So that was another one.

MICHELLE: That’s amazing. When I was in college, I studied abroad in Paris. And I would say, this was, what, 2008 maybe? So it’s not, you know… globalization in 2008. It’s not like I was without the things that I was used to, but I remember my mom sent me in the mail a box of Wheat Thins and a box of macaroni and cheese. And I had the same reaction when I opened that box and saw Wheat Thins, it was like, this is the best day ever.

SARAH: So, funny story to go with that… in Korea when I lived there, gosh, that was 2007, and so deodorant, weirdly enough, wasn’t very widely available there. And so when I got my contract, my friend who was over there said, like buy deodorant, that’s something you’re not going to find in South Korea. I was like, okay, that’s so weird. And it it was so funny because I remember bringing extra, and people were just so grateful that I would give them deodorant. I was like, Oh, I have extra like here have some. It was like the little things that you kind of take for granted that it’s so exciting overseas.

MICHELLE (00:08:53): I have this wonderful image of you now being like the deodorant fairy for the other people in your program, which is like incredibly sweet and very wholesome. So, you made the decision to move back to the United States or rather you said, I guess you met your husband while you were both working in China and then you moved back together? What were some of the factors that went into that decision?

SARAH: So the big one was I gave birth and so that changed pretty much everything. My husband and I weren’t really considering moving back to North America at all. My sort of vision for my life was like, I’ll work until I’m 65 overseas and then I’ll retire and buy like a little hut in Thailand and live out the rest of my days. I was kind of… that was at least my plan. Anyways, my husband thought pretty similarly. But when my son was born, we knew that we wanted to make sure that we were close to family and so where my husband’s family is from happens to be like a six hour drive away from where my family is in Toronto. And so we were like, okay, we want to make sure that we’re at least close, because flying from Asia to North America is like a bit of a trek. And so we knew that we weren’t gonna be able to do that as often as we’d like. And so worst case, if there was like an emergency, if we were in the US, it’s at least like, six to seven hour flight, I think max compared to like, 24 hours from from Asia. So that was one. And I think the second thing is we, we really took a look at our values and thought, like, where do we want to raise our son? What are some of the things that we really wanted to instill in him as parents, and you know, just how do we want to raise him to be a good human being, and we ultimately decided that North America for now was the better option. Not that we didn’t love Asia or Europe or any of those places, but it was one of those where we were familiar with the school system, laws, and things like that. And so we didn’t want to be stressed out as parents and then not knowing how to navigate seemingly simple things. And so we thought, okay, let’s just move back to North America for now. If we change our minds, we change our minds.

MICHELLE (00:11:13): Yeah. I bet it was hard to give up that kind of travel. I mean, did you feel like a tension between staying and leaving?

SARAH: Yes. And like I said, like the job. I mean, 16 week paid holiday, like, I mean, that’s pretty dang good, if you think about it. And I just truly enjoyed my job. That was the second part. And the third part is if you if you want to talk money, you I don’t think my salary at that point was maybe $40k-ish. $50,000. And so considering the fact that I was making that, plus I was living in China, which had such a low standard of living, I wasn’t paying rent, didn’t have a car, like all of those major budget line items, were not there. And so just thinking about that, it can be really hard to give up for a lot of people.

MICHELLE: Yeah, totally. So I’m curious, because I have a ton of follow up questions for you. And I like I’m trying to make them into a coherent flow. So you mentioned earlier in this episode that you you sort of like admitted that you were not always good with money. And yet you also found yourself in this this time of your life where you were making decent money. So like, Can you tell me a little bit about that? What was that change for you?

SARAH: Yes, so, I wasn’t good with money in the sense that I was spending it to make other people happy. So I was a group with a family full of accountants, like every single member of my family, and I’m talking even extended relatives were somehow either in the banking or accounting sector. And so I grew up knowing QuickBooks and spreadsheets and all of those fancy terms. And so I knew logically how to budget and even investing at one point, even though I ignored a lot of it. But what it boiled down to was that the emotional part, I just had really low self esteem growing up. And so I would buy things to make me look cool. And in some ways, I guess like when you’re at a teenager, it’s kind of natural. I almost took it to the extreme at that point. I dated someone, I ended up taking care of them financially for a while, and ended up getting broke pretty much in the process, like I had credit card debt. And so I was, I was forced to look at my behavior. When I was back at my parents house, and had no job I was in credit card debt. And I was like, what on earth am I doing? How did I get in the situation? Like, I know how to budget, I know how to pay back a credit card. Why wasn’t I doing it? And so it was a lot of personal development. It was a lot of like, I just had to love myself and figure out that like, I don’t have to spend money to make myself look cool, make friends, or make other people happy. So was a lot of that work. And once I started doing a lot more of that, then the practical stuff was a lot easier in terms of earning more money. Gosh, it’s been a crazy roller coaster the last couple of years. Part of it was imposter syndrome. Because I don’t have a background in finance other than the fact that every single member of my family is in something to do with finance, right? I mean, I have a liberal arts degree. I taught elementary school for how many years, I don’t have any relationship to the finance world. And so it was a lot of like, Who do you think you are? You don’t have a CFP. You don’t have an accounting license. You didn’t even study finance in college, like, who are you to pitch these big publications to write about these really complex subjects? And so it was a lot of… like I had to get over myself in order to increase my income.

MICHELLE (00:15:03): Yeah. So I’m curious because you, you mentioned something that I think is really important. So doing sort of this inner work and really digging into some of the emotional drivers behind spending and some of the, you know… what need are we trying to fill when we buy certain things or when we buy certain things for other people. And so it sounds to me like you did a lot of that work, which is awesome. I’m curious. It kind of sounds to me, like, a lot of that was self initiated, that you didn’t get a ton of that growing up. And so I’m curious how that’s influencing your desire to raise your son a certain way. Have you found that any of those lessons are translating there?

SARAH: Oh, gosh, that is a very, very good question. So I actually wrote an article about this on how I don’t want my son to inherit my financial stresses because… the way you act around someone can really influence the way that they view certain things in the world. And so what I’m trying to do, I mean, I think he’s not trying to really learn like credit card usage or budgeting, because he’s four right now. But what I’m at least trying to do is give him the space to fail, give him the space to explore and to make decisions on his own. I mean, yeah, as much as you can, I guess, for four year old. Because I think what I, what I realized is I had to work really hard at trusting myself, like trusting the fact that I’m making decisions that I think are best for me whether or not they turn out to be or I had to work on a lot of like forgiveness. Like, oh, great. I got into credit card debt, that really sucked. But that was just a past choice. I’m making the choice now to get out of it. That’s what’s important. And so, because my philosophy is you cannot teach people skills until you show them that there’s a safe space for them to explore and fail and do whatever it is. Because without that, that space, it really doesn’t matter. Because if someone’s going to let’s say, do their budget wrong, they’re going to feel like crap. And they’re going to not care anymore about money and they’re not going to care anymore about both the whatever aspects of their financial life that you’re trying to help them with.

MICHELLE: Yeah, I love that. I think it’s, it’s interesting, because when we use the phrase, like holding space for somebody, I mean, I think, at least for me, personally, I tend to think of holding space for my peers, or holding space for my family. But I think it’s also really important to hold space for the young people in our lives as they’re growing and changing and learning and starting to make those decisions for themselves. So that’s, that’s really neat.

SARAH: Yeah, and I think it’s important to hold space for yourself. Because there’s a whole cliche like, put on your oxygen mask before you help somebody else with theirs. And so this was a big thing that I’m still learning now, but but it, it kind of grew more heightened when it became a parent. Like, if I cannot take care of my needs, like how can I expect to help someone else and so, I’m really making it a point to take like half a day for myself, you know, meditate in the morning, like kind of little things like that. So that because if if I want to model good behavior to my son or model good behavior to my readers or listeners, I have to start with me right?

MICHELLE: There are actually, a lot of times when I am… maybe not so much on the spending side, but when I’m thinking about maybe not wanting to update my own budget, or if I start feeling some fear or anxiety or imposter syndrome… you know, I’m human too, that that stuff happens to all of us. Sometimes I will think about that. I’ll think like, boy, if I were doing a podcast on this, what would my listeners think? Or you know, I always tell people to do XYZ. So I guess I should probably have a taste of my own medicine, and just like open my budget spreadsheet and handle it the way that I need to. I like that. It’s good accountability, my anonymous accountability squad. You’re all out there, I hear you. I appreciate you.

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MICHELLE: So when you moved back to the United States, I know a lot changed for you. So you kind of made this decision to transition from teaching into personal finance. And you say you gave yourself like six months. So talk about that for me a little bit.

SARAH (00:19:55): Alright, so when my husband and I made the decision to move back… Oh gosh, I’d like to say like, within a school year, so 10 months, we were like, okay, let’s start prepping to go back (to teaching). And so this point, I was really thinking like, oh, do I want to? Do I want to pursue teaching when I’m in the US? What’s really important right now? What do you want to do? So what we also decided was that it was probably more important for my husband to get a teaching job first, and then I would figure it out, because we weren’t sure if we’re going to move close to family and so the whole childcare thing was up in the air. I had my green card at that point, but we weren’t sure if there was going to be any, you know, hiccups with that. And so it was kind of one of those things were like, Okay, you know what, like, my husband can get a job pretty easily here. He has a teaching license, lots of experience et cetera, let’s get that sorted for him. And then I can wait, because we had a pretty sizable emergency fund at the point that we had like two years’ worth of expenses saved up. So we’re like, okay, worst case scenario I don’t get something, then my husband has his income, and we have this big emergency fund. At this point, I was doing freelance writing for fun. like this really tiny side hustle, like I was making a couple thousand dollars a year. I mean, okay, not small but not enough to, to make a living off of right? And so this point, I was trying to write a little bit about personal finance. I started writing for textbook companies, for like teaching. And so I was like, okay, it seems like a lot of people want to hire freelance writers for personal finance topics like, that’d be interesting. And so again, imposter syndrome reared its ugly head because I’m like, I don’t know anything about US personal finance. I know plenty of Canadian topics. And so at that point, I was like, you know what, maybe I can just do freelance writing to supplement my husband’s income. I’m gonna try this for six months. That way, it gives me plenty time to figure out paperwork, plenty of time for my son and everyone else to settle in, and then I can ramp up my teaching career. And so that’s what I did. Within six months after we moved, I had made pretty decent income. I wouldn’t say the same as what I made is teaching, but it was enough to like, or you can pay, like, the rent and stuff, and then I just kept ramping it up. So yeah.

MICHELLE: Yeah. So in the first six months, like it was at least pretty easy to see this as a viable career option. This is something that you can use to make money for sure.

SARAH: Yeah. And to be honest, at that point, I just felt like I was in survival mode. I mean, I called this like, the trifecta where I was like, I’d moved to a brand new country. I mean, yeah, we visited my relatives in the US, but I’d never lived in the US before. At that point. I quit my teaching job and started a new career as a freelance writer, and I was also taking care of a young child. So I was like this three pretty major life things all in one that I thought, Oh, I can handle this like no problem. Right? Silly in retrospect. But at that point, it was like, how do I handle like my son when he’s teething or I’m potty training him or this and that and it was like a lot of that, plus a lot of self doubt in terms of pitching clients. And feeling quite isolated, because we were we were in a pretty small town at that point. And so I never really left the house much because of my son, and all that.

MICHELLE: (00:23:33): I appreciate your honesty about things like imposter syndrome and isolation, because I think those are real problems that a lot of folks face. So thank you for being open about those. I’m also curious about one other thing, or I guess one other aspect of your journey. So you mentioned that when you first got started freelancing, your goal was to sort of supplement your husband’s income, but that’s not really what happened. Your business grew. So how did that change? How did that change the way that you started to think about your work and, like, your role as a money maker?

SARAH: It was funny, because I don’t think I ever… until I think I moved to the US, I never really took the freelance writing stuff seriously, even hearing other people make like really good money from it. And I was like, okay, that’s cool. But at that point, I was still like, maybe I still want to teach? I was never really fully “in” on freelance writing, and I think six months in, especially, I think, that was the point where I think I was just so emotionally drained, where I was like, I need to be all-in on something. Like I either like quit this, you know, freelance writing stuff and just commit to getting a teaching license. Or I give up the teaching license part and fully commit to the freelance writing, because there’s potential in both. But if I’m kind of straddling between the both worlds, I’m not gonna progress in anything. And so, at that point, I really sat down. I was like, the most important thing to me right now is flexibility, right, being there for my son, and all of that. And so it’s okay, you know what? I’m going to go on on freelance writing. And so that’s what I did. And at that point, when I made that commitment, I was like, I cannot just make $20,000 a year. That’s not going to do it for me, I need to make at least $50,000 if I want to replace my teaching salary. And so I was like, Okay, well, how can I do that? And then as I earned more money, we had now moved to another state, we moved to Florida. I was like, okay, like, I think I can make $100 grand. I think I can do this. I’m going to go all in and commit to this amount of money. It represented a lot of life changes. At that point we were saving for a house, I wanted up the the childcare amount, we wanted to increase our retirement savings. And so I decided: Okay, I’m all in. And so it was really making that connection, where all of those things fell into place. It was almost like I didn’t give myself an option to back out.

MICHELLE (00:26:08): Yeah. Was it scary to name that number out loud? like to say I’m gonna make six figures as a freelancer?

SARAH: Yes. And funnily enough, I made that announcement on Beyond the Dollar, the podcast, I was like, This is my goal. And I remember recording this and it was published, I was like, oh my gosh, now I HAVE to do it because I set it out in public. What if I don’t? And so that was a pretty nerve wracking moment. But it’s like, I’m like, I’ll do it. You know, I think I can do it.

MICHELLE: I love that. Whenever I have a big goal, or there’s something I’m trying to accomplish, I think this is particularly true in my business, I tend to just like tell everybody I know about it, because I can count on them to eventually say like, Hey, aren’t you working on that thing? Or weren’t you going to do this other thing? And I always want to be able to respond yes to those questions, which is, you know, potentially healthy, potentially unhealthy, depending on the situation. But yeah, there’s nothing like kind of planting that flag and saying, Hey, this is my goal and it’s going to happen. Letting the whole world kno … to me that is terrifying.

SARAH: Not in a bad way, but it is. It is certainly terrifying.

MICHELLE: So as you as your business grew, and as you sort of started taking on this, this role as breadwinner. I know that you’ve you’ve recently been honest about some burnout that resulted from this. Can you talk a little bit about that?

SARAH (00:27:39): Yeah, and I think looking back now, I realize it. It started when we first moved to the US. I am someone who is very open with what I’ve been through and my feelings, but when it happens in the moment, I try to block it out, and it’s not healthy. So I tend to bottle a lot of things up. And so I remember just kind of writing articles from 4am until midnight, and taking care of my son, and feeling really isolated in this tiny town. Not feeling like I could really speak to anyone. I mean, at that point, I think the only two people I was speaking with were my son and my husband, like face to face, except for Skype calls and all that. So I was already feeling pretty upset, but I would push it down like no, you know, this is fine. This is temporary. And then I think part of why I committed to earning more was that it gave me something to do. I know it sounds weird, but I think you know, thinking back it was like it was something to strive for that was outside of motherhood and feeling isolated. And so I’m one of those people that when I go all in, I’m a really Type A person. Like anything I do has to be like 110%. And so here I was, going pretty intense on the motherhood stuff. I was like, my son doesn’t need to be in full time daycare, he’ll just stay home with me. Here I am working like, I think like 12 hour days at that point, you know, and I’m doing all the housework and all of that stuff, and putting all of this pressure on myself… But yeah, it was just like, pressure like, go go, go, go go, then I started the podcast back in 2018. And I was really giving my all in that. And I remember just feeling tired, and really just emotionally drained. But again, I pushed it away. I’m like, this is temporary until I reach this goal, or this is temporary because I want to make $100,000 this year. It’s fine. And it wasn’t until I’d say January of last year that I started feeling more tired than usual. And I noticed okay, I think something’s going on. But I got to a point where I was essentially forced to stay in bed. Like I remember waking up and I just physically couldn’t get out of bed. I was like, Oh my gosh, what’s going on? And I, it was really scary because I thought like, I was having a heart attack or something. It was just this like, I can’t even describe the feeling, but it was really intense. And so someone needs to take my son to preschool while I laid on the couch. And so for a month, I didn’t cook, I didn’t do any housework. I mean, I had occasional client work, but I didn’t take any new clients. I hired a VA full time to handle a lot of my admin stuff. Because I just couldn’t, I couldn’t like cope with any little thing. Like I remember my husband came home was like, Okay, I’m gonna order takeout like, what do you want to eat? And I burst into tears. I’m like, I didn’t want to make that decision. It was really an intense time. I think we were also house hunting. And somehow I managed the energy to get out of the house to do that. I don’t know how, but I remember I was like, Okay, I can’t handle this. So my husband suggested I go to therapy. So I did go to therapy, just to work through my emotions. And so I learned that I have to process emotions as they come. That was the big lesson. And it forced me to really slow down, because I think one of the things that I haven’t done, which I which I’m forcing myself to do a lot more of, is have personal goals. I’m really goal oriented, but everything had to do with my career. It was not like, here’s what I want to do, I want to run a marathon, or I want to learn how to cook this. Like I didn’t have any of those types of goals. But now I do, and I’m really slowing down, forcing myself to take a day off every once in a while, and it’s just much, much easier to handle.

MICHELLE (00:31:55): Yeah, and I think that’s so important that you do the work to get yourself out of this place and realizing, I mean, I think there’s a big stigma against mental health issues in the United States. And so being able to say, Hey, this is a situation where I need to, for sure, take better care of myself and probably need to get my buns to therapy. Like, that’s, that’s a hard realization for folks to have. And especially when there is this pressure to have the family life and build the career. And when you work for yourself, I think people have this view that it’s all casually working in fun places, and then you’re living your best life, like doing it for the ‘gram or whatever. And that’s just not always the case. Sometimes you work too much, and then you have to sleep for a month.

SARAH: Yeah, which is what happened, right? Oh, and I want to say to that, too: I remember feeling really guilty when all of this happened. And it was more because I mean, I’ve no complaints in my life. I do have a flexible career. I earn good money. I can travel whenever I want, like all of these things are really awesome, right? I obviously worked pretty damn hard to get to this point. But I’m at this point. And I just remember I would get like messages from people or emails like wanting to start their own freelance writing business or they would just come to say like, Oh, I’m so jealous of your life like you have such a great life, and it must be so great to do this and this. And I just remember feeling guilty like, okay, people want this and here I am like, I cannot even cope. Right? I cannot even cope with this and so I would feel bad. Like, why am I so upset over the littlest things? I should be pretty damn lucky or feel damn lucky that I’m in this position. So it’s a lot of having to unpack that guilt. Which is why I’m so honest about it, because I think we do need to talk a lot more about it. I don’t want to say working for yourself sucks. But there are a lot of trade offs that you do have to make, and you have to be prepared for and taking care of yourself. No one’s going to do that for you. In some ways, I would say with a nine-to-five, you have a set schedule where you can kind of shut off your brain after work, or things like that, you kind of have the built in time off. Working for yourself, if you don’t have those boundaries in place, it’s really, really easy to get into that place, which is what happened to me.

MICHELLE (00:34:24): Yeah, for sure. So one thing I love about your work is that you’re always really honest with where you’re at, and how that influences your journey with money and kind of encouraging people to do that same work. And so I know you do a lot of this through your podcast, Beyond the Dollar. Can you talk a little bit about the name of the podcast and what that means to you?

SARAH: Sure. So what I’ve learned throughout this whole, my very short existence on earth anyways, in terms of money, is that it’s ultimately Life First, and then money second. Money is an important part of our life, don’t get me wrong, but it is there to help us with whatever’s going on our life. And so an example of that was my emergency fund during that month where I had to tend to my physical mental health. I was so thankful that that was there. Because, yeah, I did earn a bit of an income during that time, but I spent it all on contractors, I spent it all on like automating stuff. And so yeah, my husband worked. And of course, we weren’t in dire straits, but gosh, I was so thankful for money at that time, because it helped give me that space to attend to what was really important my life, which was figuring out the burnout stuff. And so Beyond the Dollar is really a space where we talk about life events or transitions, essentially through the lens of money. So like, let’s talk about divorce. At that point, you’re kind of forced to think about money, right? You’re emotional, but you’re maybe forced to think, Okay, I’m going to lose half my house. What’s going to happen? Where am I going to live? Or, you know, maybe you’re a stay-at-home mom and you didn’t have an income stream for a long time. And now you have to be forced to get a job, so what are some marketable skills I have? And etc, etc. So Beyond the Dollar is really that space to explore those questions. I think financial advice is great. It’s very much needed. But I think that stuff is not useful until you have something to apply it to, which is life.

MICHELLE: Yeah, I love it. So where where can people find your work online?

SARAH: Sure, so head over to beyondthedollar.co. Not .com, it’s beyondthe dollar dot C-O, you can find some articles I have there, with the latest podcast episodes. We’re currently in the middle of season five. So lots of exciting things happening for the rest of the season. You can also find me on Instagram @beyondthedollar. If you’re a Twitter fan, check out @Sarahlicain.

MICHELLE: Awesome. Sarah, thank you so much. I appreciate all of  your great insight, your vulnerability, your honesty. It was an absolute pleasure to have you on the show today.

SARAH: Thank you so much for having me.

END CREDITS: I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Young Scrappy Money podcast. If you want to read about my work as a financial advisor and financial coach, you can do so at www.youngandscrappy.com. That’s www.youngandscrappy.com. Thanks again for listening. 

Made with love by Jesse in Atlanta. [SMOOCHING SOUND]

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