On this episode Sarah and Amanda discuss the Forward Motions mission.
They dig into how learning how decision making can make or break your success with finances and in life. Last Amanda and Sarah talk about some basics around the fear people have with truly looking into their finances, learning about financial literacy, and why it is so important to learn to invest.
On this episode Sarah and Amanda discuss the Forward Motions mission.
They dig into how learning how decision making can make or break your success with finances and in life. Last Amanda and Sarah talk about some basics around the fear people have with truly looking into their finances, learning about financial literacy, and why it is so important to learn to invest.
Amanda Miller 00:05
All right. Hey, what's up everybody? My name is Amanda Miller. I'm with forward motion. This is Sarah.
Sarah Schroeder 00:11
Hi, I'm Sarah.
Amanda Miller 00:12
We are here with get your money right podcast brought to you by forward motion, forward motion, our mission is creating generational prosperity, one family at a time. So we're super excited to bring this podcast to you for a different layer of content, and a lot of great information that we're going to be able to talk about, we're going to be able to share and learn together. And our goal here is to help you move forward. So we talked a little bit about what we were going to do today. And obviously, this is our first podcast. So lots of fun about to happen, bear with us. But you know, we're gonna bring the energy, we've got a lot of great topics that we'll talk about today, you know, we'll start to dig in a little bit into some of our methodology and how we think about moving forward. My background, I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, on 48th Street between Rocher and baseline. So everything in between. We had a really great upbringing, loving parents, and we had the I think, let's call it Audacity. We have the audacity to learn some things the hard way. And that's good, right? Because today, Sarah is a registered nurse. Talk a little bit about what you do. Yeah.
Sarah Schroeder 01:25
So I'm a registered nurse at Phoenix Children's and I work in surgery right now. I'm a supervisor there. So I've done that for about 11 years now. It's crazy to say that crazy yeah. But I love it still and work with kids are crazy and fun. And yeah, that's what I do and took a while to get there. But
Amanda Miller 01:46
yeah, but you know, you really, I'd say you figured it out before I did. You busted your butt went to went to school. And you know, really proud to be able to say in you know, I bragged about you Sarah's my sister. So we brag about each other. I think 11 years is a long time to be doing something. And I'm sure there are a lot of lessons that you've learned over the course of that time, that don't just pertain to nursing, right, that pertain to life. Oh, yeah. So you know, myself, I am a sales manager. I've been a trainer, sales manager for a number of years, at least five years. And I have a background in culinary arts as well. So I am a certified or I have a degree in culinary arts doing record on blue. I've opened restaurants, I've owned a catering company. I've shefte in some really great restaurants around the country. Yeah, she's
Sarah Schroeder 02:33
gonna say we're sorry. I didn't figure it out before you like you've had a lot of amazing adventures before. You've just had different ones before me. I had one path. You had many paths. I wouldn't say I figured it out before.
Amanda Miller 02:47
Oh, yeah, we can, we can definitely talk about some of my many tabs. It's funny, you know, I talked with folks who've known me for a long time. And I've worn a lot of different hats. And today, I still wear a lot of hats. You know, as a regional sales manager, I lead a team, I've got about 15 people on my team. And I work in the energy space and solar, we started forward motion, it was actually kind of I would say, my brainchild, my baby, I had this epiphany one day, you know, I'm sitting in the home that I own. And you know, I've been able to purchase and afford the vehicle that I want. And those are things right. But at the end of the day, you know, taking different vacations and being able to and teaching myself and learning to invest and really just diving in and starting to create generational wealth for my family a number of years ago when I kind of sat back and I was a man, what I went through to get here, right. And so what I kind of thought about, I will say, I made a lot of mistakes along the way. And I'm not saying that mistakes are bad mistakes are good. But some of the mistakes that I made, I see people making similar ones. And I don't think that it should have to take someone you know, 30 years to realize or learn some of the things that you know, I'm always like each one teach Ron right. And so I've got the knowledge now I'm an avid investor, I'm a homeowner, I own rental property, and continuing to grow that side of it. And so we started forward motion in order to teach and to help the masses. And really, also we'll talk a little bit about the wealth gap as well because that's the piece that that I'm really passionate about is just closing that gap and helping everyday people get an opportunity to have the American Dream, the real American dream, right creating generational prosperity, one family at a time. Anything else that you wanted to kind of share when it comes to like the intro piece of it like who we are who you are?
Sarah Schroeder 04:42
I don't know. Now you're putting me on the spot. I
Amanda Miller 04:44
have Sarah's on the board affordable.
Sarah Schroeder 04:46
Yeah, I'm on the I'm on the board of forward motion. I'm happy to be a part of it. I have Amanda has done amazing things with the company so far and I see it having a really bright future. I'm really proud to talk about it. Much as Amanda said, she brags about me bragging about her. So this is I feel like going to be a great podcast, it's going to be a great addition to the entire nonprofit organization that you're creating. And I'm excited to see what we can do with it.
Amanda Miller 05:17
Yeah. So get ready to get locked in on your drive to work on your walk at the gym, get plugged into get your money, right podcast brought to you by forward motion. So we're going to talk about a lot of different things in this podcast. Because, you know, a lot of times I think we think about money. And we think bank accounts, we think investing, we think credit, we think all these things. But there's a lot that goes into it. And so we're going to spend some time also talking about mindset, we're going to spend some time talking about history, we're going to spend some time talking about exposure, external influence, and different things like that. And then we'll just going to talk about what's going on in the world and how it ties into how we can create that life and that legacy that we individually want to create. As you know, I'm a parent, you're a Thea, you've got lots of nieces and nephews, it's very, very important that we believe and teach the next generation that's important to us. So moving forward, how and why so Yeah, talk about that.
Sarah Schroeder 06:19
You know, yeah, like, I'm still learning every day, I feel like a lot of these things that you have taught me and just are teaching other people and that I'm still learning, I wish I would have known a little bit sooner. I feel like I have a pretty good start. Um, but you know, I had a pretty good start when I was younger, just by default from, like, starting young as a nurse and having the opportunity to have a 401k. You know, but I feel like that's just the bare minimum and baseline of where you start. And had I known about some of the things I do now, I probably would have been leaps and bounds ahead of where I am. So I'm still learning and I'm excited to learn more.
Amanda Miller 06:55
Yeah, it's kind of addicting, right? When you start to learn a little bit, I, you know, I will talk, you know, another episode, but I remember, you know, today, looking at my investment portfolio, and just I always think like, that started with 140 $3, stock purchase, and then a lot of time digging in learning about the stock market. So
Sarah Schroeder 07:15
I will say one more thing is that it, this is not always like, this is also scary to me, it's not exciting, always. And I feel like a lot of people feel that way. And that maybe is what makes people hesitant to look into it, or think about their finances. And this is a way to like not be afraid and to everyday, every time you face it and talk about it and dive deeper into it, you get a little bit more comfortable with it. And a little less scared. So this is where you should start
Amanda Miller 07:42
if that's you like yeah, a little nervous. Yeah, I think that's a really good point that you bring up Sarah because everyone doesn't get super excited and start going down financial rabbit holes at 10 o'clock at night. And you know, watching listening to podcasts about super technical finance, where you've got this droning person who is, you know, from the finance world, talking about percentages and equities and all these things. And you know, or watching videos or digging into sec reports and things like that everyone doesn't get super excited about that. And so the fact that I get excited about that, I feel like I have a responsibility to share what I learned with everyone I come in contact with pretty much, pretty much so you can't stop me from Teigen. Awesome, well, you know, I want to talk a little bit about like generational wealth mindset, because, you know, as we mentioned, creating generational prosperity is our mission. And so, you know, a generational wealth mindset, I think, from where we come from, right, there's middle class and you know, some of the folks that we grew up with we're not quite middle class, right? I've had friends that I've you know, had to bring food to or you know, thought like, How can I help this person they don't have you know, clothes or different things like that. And in my younger adult life, I've been like super not middle class, right, I've had a vehicle repoed I've, you know, been just about you know, evicted from an apartment, I counted my my coins to go and turn them in in order to go and get some money on my Empower card so I could get through the next day. Empower if you're not on that together. If you're not familiar, empower is a pay as you go electricity service offered by one of the utility companies here in Arizona SRP. And so you have a little card and you have to go to the grocery store or wherever and load money on it, then you load it into your little box, and that's your electricity. As you can imagine, if you're not great with budgeting, or if you're just not making enough money to get by, it can be let's call it a fun game that you play, you know, that. I would be like, I know they're not going to turn it off. You know, it's like they won't turn it off after 6pm So if I can get that 30 cents to stretch until six I'm good until the morning then I can go, you know, put some on before they before 5am, plug it into the box, get ready for work come home, there won't be any power. But by the time I get home, I'll found five bucks. I'll be good for the next night, right. So I think when I think about legacy, I think of a lot of the fun struggles that I would like to call it the opportunity that I had to go through them. I don't want my kids and grandkids to have to go through those same struggles. And I think there is a mindset in middle class and in poverty mindset of, well, I had to get it out the dirt. So you have to get it out the dirt to you know, to kids, or I am where I am. And so and I'm not going to be able to get any further. And so it is what it is you figure it out, right. And that's really what I want to change for my next generations in my family is that mindset of No, you know what, it's okay. If you come from the hood, it's okay to set your kids up for the future. And it's okay to have your kids set up and then start working on setting up your grandkids. Now, that doesn't mean you're going to create an entitled generation because you're still going to be teaching them wealth and skill sets and teaching and instilling hard working work ethics. But there's nothing wrong with being able to give your kids a down payment for their first house. There's nothing wrong with buying or having homes that you own and having your kids be able to live there while they're in college there as long as you know, or if they're not in college while they're building their first business or whatever half they decide to take. There's nothing wrong with that. And you know, I think that legacy mindset is something that I see in different communities that can sometimes be misled, in my mind. What do you think about that? Yeah, I
Sarah Schroeder 11:53
think we've probably even had those mindsets when we were younger, like seeing other kids growing up with those luxuries and being like, why don't I be nice, you know, and thinking, you know, I have to work hard for everything that I've done. Yep. In some people are just getting it handed to them. And it's like, Well, someone worked hard for that someone. Right, you know, so. And that's how I feel now. It's like, yeah, it would have been so much nicer. Had I had something like that. So I wouldn't have had to struggle so much. You know, and in some areas we did, we had, we weren't always struggling. Yeah. And we kind of sometimes made our power meter. Yeah. But, you know, just to be able to provide that ease of okay, I can just focus on school. Yeah, I can. Yeah, I have a safe home. Yeah. You know, whatever it may be to help provide for my nephews, my, my family, future family, whatever. It may be my closer. Yeah,
Amanda Miller 12:57
no, absolutely. And, you know, one of the things that I think about, you know, being black, I think that's something that's very prevalent in the black community as well is, I don't want my kids to be entitled. And there's a difference between having enough and having a situation set up for you to where you can focus on moving forward, rather than, you know, having to focus on getting by when you're in a survival mindset. It's really hard to think about prosperity. And it's really hard to think about thriving when you're just trying to survive. It's like I'm literally just trying to get by, like, I remember living paycheck to paycheck, and it being really like, okay, like you're planning your whole life around. It's funny. Katt Williams you know, not endorsing Katt Williams, but Katt Williams had a comedy once and he was talking about making life decisions at the gas pump, like I can't put $20 in the gas pump, I got to put five in the gas pump, I need, you know, five for food right now. And then I have you know, and like we shouldn't be making life decisions at the at the gas pump. I remember the first time I you know, started pumping gas in my car, and I walked away to do something while it was pumping, and the whole thing filled up, and I look back, and I didn't care. And I was like, I felt like I made it. Like, I just let that gas go, like, oh, you put $60 worth of gas in this truck. And you know, I'm cool, right? And so that's kind of the legacy mindset that I think is important that we start to shift and change within our communities in different communities all around. So um, I think one of the questions that I want to kind of talk a little bit about and what's really near and dear to me is like, how do you? How do you change from wanting something to actually ensuring that your actions and the actions that you take every day align with your desired outcomes? There's something that I talk about with my team is, do our actions match our desire, it's really easy to say, I'm going to, for instance, start a podcast, right? But actually sitting down, writing an outline, setting up the cameras, having someone lined up to do the editing, all of these different things or getting the editing done yourself, right? All of these different things they take, they take actions. It's like, dreaming is amazing. And you can probably attest, I'm a dreamer play. I have these ideas, and I get excited about them. And I just want to do so much. But I would like to think that I'm also a doer. And I think that meshing of the dreaming and doing is where we start to see the blossoms of success begin to come out. What do you think about that?
Sarah Schroeder 16:00
Yeah, no, I agree. Like, I feel, the more you talk about something, I mean, it's great. But you got to put an action plan and like, set your words in place, because it's not gonna, it's not just gonna occur if you're not actually putting. And I think about that, as you're telling me, I'm like, I'm not as good at this as I should be. We're about to talk about a lot of things that I'm not really doing. That we're about to have a lot of time. But yeah, I agree on a percent like, the more that we start to put our actions and these thoughts and big plans in place, I feel like, yeah, the more those it keeps growing, and you get better and are able to see the actions come alive. Yeah. Yeah,
Amanda Miller 16:45
no, absolutely. Because I'm, so I read a lot I listened to a lot, I watch a lot. And one of the people that I listened to is Mel Robbins. She is, I believe an author. She's a speaker, she's a business owner. And she's really, really super dope. And one of the things that she talks about is the five second rule, she was kind of going through and talking about how she used to always snooze the alarm clock. And then she created this mind trick where when the alarm would go off, she would count backwards 54321 and lock yourself out of bed. And she's been doing this for years now. And it works. And it's a mind trick that she created. And she goes on to talk about how the five second rule is so deep that when you have a thought, you have pretty much about five seconds before you decide you're not going to do it before you forget, like your brain starts to go, you get 10 more thoughts that come in, and then you forgotten even about that amazing thought that you had without acting on it. And this comes down to you know, signing up for a course taking action on your budget, looking at your credit, and really putting together a plan of how you're going to start to chip away, fix it or improve it, learning about investing all kinds of different things, you think about it even down to like, I got this email, I need to respond to this email. And it's like, Oh, I'll do it later. And it's like that five seconds. Next thing, you know, it's been three, four days, and you're like, Oh, crap, I got to respond to that email, right. And so actions are very important. And they all come down to decisions. And, you know, being able to, to make a decision and move forward with it, there's a quote, and I might get it kind of butchered a little bit. But the way that it goes is don't let perfect get in the way of good. And I used to be instilled to a point, you know, and I think we all are a little bit hesitant to start something before we feel like the execution is going to be perfect. And the problem with that is one it's never going to be perfect. And to again, something that I try and always lean back on and remember, it's almost not as important what you do as it is that you do and you know, there are people out there who are like crazy successful as you know, I think about we've got I'll just pick something we've got lights right that are here in the office here. And I bought these these lights to create, you know, better lighting for the podcast. There's someone who owns this company who's selling lights. I mean, I don't know this guy, they might be doing like Uber well selling these lights. Like if you can decide, you know, I am going to get some water. I'm going to put some essence in it. Whatever essence is right? They don't want to call it flavor anymore. It's like essence water. And I'm gonna throw some bubbles in it. Put it in a can. And I'm going to sell this. I'm going to go to Walmart I'm going to go to you know shamrock and system services of America, I'm going to go to these different distributors Crescent crown or whoever. And I'm going to say I got this best bubbly water. And it's going to get on the shelves, and I'm going to put, you know, together, I'm going to get with marketing, I'm going to like, it's like, you go do it, and you think about it, it's like, it's water. It's not necessarily life changing. But the fact that you did it, and you started, and then you were consistent, right? Consistency, beats intensity, every time. You can do something with intensity for 234 weeks, and stop and never be successful. You can do something consistently, small moves every day, over the course of years, and you are going to be lightyears ahead of anyone. So I guess my question is, because like we talked about earlier, I can talk guys, I can, I can talk I'll be I'll be I'll be careful. So you know, decision making is the single most important skill, in my opinion, to anyone who wants to be successful. The single most important skill to master is making a decision, you marrying it for the moment, not marrying it forever, right. be stubborn about your goals, and be flexible about your methods. I've got quotes for days, folks. Um, but you know, make a decision, marry it for the moment, and do it consistently. So you know, what does that? Does that bring up any thoughts to you like, on that kind of vein of decision making? That's a lot.
Sarah Schroeder 21:36
So decision making in like, day to day or everything, just, I think like finances?
Amanda Miller 21:42
Yeah. I think yes, yeah. As it pertains to finances, ideas of skills that you want to employ in order to, like, maybe it's we got the side hustle, or, you know, gig economy, you know, I, I want this, I know that I want to end up here. I can start here, here or here. And eventually any of these three are going to get me to here, but I can't decide if I if I'm going to start here, here here. Right. It's like, I want to start investing. But do I start with crypto? Do I start with?
Sarah Schroeder 22:18
Yeah, I mean, you just sometimes you? And it's overwhelming. Like sometimes you just got to pick it just pick one. You know, sometimes? People have a hard time with that, I guess. Yeah. Do a little research on each of them. If you're having a hard time and kind of fill it out and see which one? You know, you don't have to just make some blind decision. And like, yeah, yeah, jump into it. But take the time do a little research. It doesn't have to be this in depth research, either. You know, it could be Yeah, get a little surface on it. Yeah, just and then, you know, pick one. And start. I feel like there's a lot of as far as like, okay, investing, like, there's a lot of apps out there right now, that are very user friendly. We're in a world of technology where you know, you can start making these small investments and see, again, I mean, I started with maybe a total of 200 bucks in one of these apps, and then I'm, I'm at around $1,000. And you know, I haven't done anything, I've just put money into some companies that I've done a little bit of research on, and very small amounts. I'm not talking large amounts here. Yeah. All together have gained, you know, a little bit of extra cash. So yeah, I want to start, you know, see that in small amounts that gets you kind of motivated to see it in larger amounts, and you start thinking about, Okay, well, what can I do next? And that's what I feel like making one decision will lead to another decision you're gonna have to make, it'll keep going. It'll keep getting easier, but you have to start and just kind of put a bandaid
Amanda Miller 23:44
on whatever. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, it's called decision fatigue. Right. And there's also a, there's a lot of FOMO. In the world of investing in finance right now. There's a lot of, I'll give you a for instance, right? So, my brother, we talk a lot about finances, our brother any, he sends me this, this specific crypto coin, he's like, buy this, right, but X amount of dollars in this right now. And I'm like, Well, what does it do? Like? And that's me, I'm a researcher. So I will and I'm, I'm a certified financial literacy educator, I am extremely, extremely cautious about financial advice, right? And so I'm like, Okay, well, what does it do? What is it for? Who built it? You know, what's the utility of it? What's the use? And in the same day, I probably had five different people tell me about five different coins that are going to be the next big thing. And I'm like, Okay, now, one of them. I was talking about a different one. And because You know, Facebook comes out meta, you know, Metaverse, something I've been actually researching for the past probably probably a year little by little, but really starting to ramp it up in the past five, six months. And there's a a coin that you can own, you know, there's this decentraland. And you can own land inside of this Metaverse type game or place. And I start, I'm like, okay, looking a little bit more deeply in this point is like 98 cents, or $1.02, or something like that, when I started talking about it, like three days ago, I did not invest in it. Because I do not invest in things that I do not understand. And I don't have fear of missing out to the point where I make emotional decisions with my money. Because I found that, yes, there's always going to be a next big thing. But there's not really missing out in the world of investing. And in the money world, because there's always going to be a next big thing, there's always going to be an opportunity to make your money print money for you. And so you can give yourself the grace and you can give yourself the opportunity to learn about it. And what I won't do is put, you know, I, I don't mind losing money, like it happens anytime that you're an investor, but you want to you want to mitigate it, right? You don't want it to happen often. So this coin today, I don't have my phone, I think it's gotten up to like $2.20 Something cents. So that's more than double, right? So anytime you can more than double your money, like, you only have to double $1,000 A small number of times, what is it 10 times you double $1,000. So 1000 2000 8000 16,032 64 128, I think like 10 times and you're at a million dollars, something like that. Don't quote me, guys, it might be a little bit more than 10. But it's like you double your money. So anytime you have the opportunity to double your money, like that's big, right? So I'm looking at it, I'm like, Okay, if I would have put in x number of dollars in this, if I would have put $10,000 It would be $20,000 right now, guess what, I would have put $10,000. And it would have when you know down to zero, it would be $0 right now, and so I didn't understand it. And so I there's that fear of missing out. And I think that's a part of that decision making as well is a fear of missing out of like, well, I missed the boat on Bitcoin or I missed the boat on Facebook, or I missed the boat on, you know, Nvidia or whatever it is, you know, and these are some tickers that I'm throwing out. No, you didn't miss the boat, the boats waiting for you swim out to it and start going today, start going now. And there's always going to be an opportunity to learn. And I think that's what we're going to talk about, in a big way. And so I want to, I want to kind of close this whole piece up a little bit by talking just a little bit about the wealth gap. So we'll start with Arizona, the state of Arizona has a poverty rate of 14%. So 14% residents in the state of Arizona fall in the poverty range, which is a little bit above the national average of 13.4%. This is according to the Brookings Institute. So these, like statistics are grim themselves. I mean, 14%, if you're in the 76%, it's like, well, that's not a lot of people. But if you're in the 14%, like, that's not good. Yeah. Right. The US Census Bureau says that 21.7% of black Arizonans are living in poverty. Right. So that's over 6% higher than just the poverty level in Arizona, and almost 7% higher than the country. And so outside of the racial wealth gap, there is a more widely known gap in wealth between the top 20% of the US population and the rest of the US population. According again to the Brookings Institute, the top 20% of households in the US hold 77% of wealth in 2016. So that means that 80% of the population share 23% of the available wealth in the United States. Sounds awesome. Doesn't sound good. Right. So, as we're looking at all of the different avenues and what's available out there, I think it's important for us to think about, we're in this together, right? If you're not part of the top 20% of US households in the United States, which obviously most of us are not right 80% are not in the top 20%. Yeah, we're out here working with 23% of the available wealth in the country. And so when we talk about creating generational prosperity, one family at a time, what we're really talking about is balancing out that wealth gap so that everyone can get their piece of the pie. Right. And just because you're successful doesn't mean I'm going to be unsuccessful. Right. And I think that's something that we also need to spread is just the thought or, or the idea of everyone can have an opportunity to succeed. Right? Right. So that was a, you know, I think, a good quick conversation that we had. And you know, at the end of the day, what we're here to do is help you to get your money, right. And the type of topics that we'll dig into, you know, we'll obviously get into much more meat in topics later on. But we talked a little bit about legacy, we talked a little bit about decision making, and, you know, mindset, core values, being confident and making the decisions that you need to make in order to move forward. And again, whether that's, you know, specifically related to finance, whether it's related to taking the course so that you can upskill and be able to, to increase your income, whether it's learning how to get a better hold, and handle and move up in your career, right career development. These are all some of the types of things that we're going to be talking about over the course of this podcast. So exciting. It is exciting. Yeah, I
Sarah Schroeder 31:20
can't believe we made it through.
Amanda Miller 31:24
So you can find forward motion at forward motion AZ, on Facebook, and Instagram. And you can find us on YouTube at moving forward, one family at a time on YouTube. We are a nonprofit organization, as we mentioned, and so you can make donations to help us continue to bring content to you at forward motion az.org forward slash donate. So again, that's forward motion az.org forward slash donate. I'm Amanda Miller. I am the founder and CEO of forward motion. And this is
Sarah Schroeder 32:07
I'm Sarah, my last name is Schrader I didn't say that earlier, but I'm also a part of for emotion on board and yeah, this is my first fun podcast comida hopefully get our money right right in the middle. I know right?
Amanda Miller 32:23
I love it guys. Look for me, reach out and you know always feel free to send your your financial literacy questions and I'd be happy to to answer some of them on the air. Thanks so much.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai