Empowering Women through Financial Literacy (w/ Melissa Rymer)

When Melissa Rymer triumphantly returned to Wealthy AF, she didn't just bring her finance expertise; she brought a story of resilience that echoes in the hearts of many. With her path through the treacherous terrain of narcissist abuse to a beacon of financial wisdom, Melissa's tale is more than just compelling—it's a roadmap for anyone seeking to reclaim their financial identity. We explore the nooks and crannies of credit scores, emergency funds, and the life-changing knowledge that can convert financial ruin into stability, all through Melissa's lens of hard-won experience.

Facing the gendered disparities of the finance world head-on, our conversation shifts toward the empowerment of women, articulating the silent struggles that play out in the balance sheets of life. Whether it's grappling with the gender pay gap or the financial handcuffs often experienced by stay-at-home mothers, we lay bare the reality of these challenges while offering a treasure trove of strategies. From the shoebox method to a staunch evaluation of your subscriptions, our exchange is more than just a dialogue—it's a call to arms for financial literacy and independence.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:29

This is Wealthy AF your ultimate guide to understand what it truly means to be Wealthy AF. And today we have a returning guest, melissa Reimer. And. Melissa is a narcissist abuse survivor who spent seven terrifying years married to a dangerous narcissist who wanted to destroy her not just mentally and physically, but financially as well. Despite her challenges, she leveraged her 40-year career in finance to gain a holistic understanding of the importance of financial wellness and recovery process. Her unique approach integrates psychological resilience, emotional intelligence and practical financial strategies to create a comprehensive framework for personal transformation. Melissa, welcome back to the show. My pleasure to have you back.

Speaker 2: 1:15

I appreciate it. Thanks, it's good to be back.

Speaker 1: 1:17

Today's topic I want to unpack with you is women empowerment and finance. Let's start with what led you, as a woman, to go into the finance sector.

Speaker 2: 1:29

Oh gosh, I actually started I'm going to give my age away in 1981. I was in college and I was given the opportunity to work part-time for a mortgage company. So I grabbed that opportunity and I originally wanted to be a veterinarian, but I quickly changed my focus to finance because I was so intrigued by it. So I continued working for this company part time until I graduated and then they transferred me in 1986 to Atlanta and that is where I started actually climbing the corporate ladder to get where I was, and it was managing the entire state of Georgia, florida, tennessee, in our mortgage and finance division. So I had a deep understanding of finances from an early age and that's why you know when I finally was given an early retirement which was December of 2021, kind of came out of the blue. But our company merged with another company and 200 of us were given this dynamite severance package. So I grabbed it, but I didn't know what I wanted to do after that because I couldn't really retire.

Speaker 2: 2:50

So that's when we started creating programs to help people that have been through the same type of abuse that myself and my husband had been through, because it is devastating I mean devastating and the financial piece of it is what holds most victims back, because you can't do anything without money.

Speaker 2: 3:12

And so if you are the one not having access to money and you don't know how to budget, you don't know how to manage when you finally get out of the relationship the narcissistic or domestic violence relationship I have so many clients that have no idea what to do. They don't know about credit scores, they don't know how to budget, they don't know how to create an emergency fund. So, because of that, because of so many, in fact, so many women that I've done seminars with while I was still in the financial industry it's just, it's so devastating I was still in the financial industry, it's just, it's so devastating and they are so anxious to learn things about. Well, how do I do it, how do I understand how to do it? How do I know how to, you know, rebuild my credit, how do I know how to start a retirement fund? So all of these things.

Speaker 1: 4:09

Really quick, melissa. I just want to give reference to the listeners If you want to. She just referenced her abuse and she was on this podcast and she and her husband shared a wonderful story, episode 393. Go back there and listen to that. I just want to reference it while we're on there. Go ahead, melissa.

Speaker 2: 4:28

Yes, and I know from my own experience. You know my ex opened accounts in my name that I didn't know about, so there was identity theft. That was credit fraud. He charged credit cards to the max on things that I had no idea and they're very slick about it because he made the minimum payments on all these fraudulent credit cards up until the divorce and then he stopped making the payments, and because he drug our divorce on for so long.

Speaker 2: 4:59

I had to make these payments because I was in the financial industry, because I worked for a well-known financial corporation. I couldn't default on these debts, so it was draining me financially. It was something that I was constantly. He was attacking me from behind, so I didn't know things were coming, so I was always reacting, and when you react to something, you're scrambling to fix it, to repair it, to cope with it.

Speaker 2: 5:33

So what I did when I retired and we opened our company Victim to Warrior, I created a financial series, and this financial series is a six-part video series with a 47-page workbook, and it's for anyone that has been through a financial hardship, whether it be from abuse, economic, a job loss, illness, anything that destroys someone financially. This course would be something that would be good for them, because it walks you through every piece of it how to create an emergency fund in case you need to leave but you haven't been able to. And then it goes into protecting your credit, freezing your credit, getting your credit repaired so your credit score can increase, because the higher your credit score, the more likely you are to get lower interest rates, a better loan on a car, maybe a better place to live, maybe a better job. The world kind of revolves around credit scores and so many people don't understand what a credit score is, how it's made up, so the course goes into a lot of details about why a credit score is so important. It also goes into how do you determine if you are a victim of identity theft or how do you dispute debts that were open in your name fraudulently. And I found so many people that they're like I don't wanna know what's on my credit report. I'm like not knowing is not gonna fix it.

Speaker 2: 7:11

If there are things on your credit report that need to be handled and disputed or a settlement or some type of workout arrangement with the creditor, if you are ignoring it, it's just going to get worse. Your credit score is going to continue to plummet and you have to start somewhere. So trying to pretend like there's nothing wrong as long as you don't see it, that's like getting a disease and not taking the medicine. It's just going to get worse. So I always tell people get a copy of your free credit report. Everybody is entitled to one free credit report a year so you can get your credit report, you can look at it and if there are things on there that aren't yours, that somebody opened in your name, you're victim of identity theft or it's just credit that maybe you yourself have ignored, you at least have a clear picture of what is on there.

Speaker 2: 8:10

And then the series tells you what to do in order to dispute, correct, freeze, rebuild, and it also goes into the financial aspect of saving for retirement. There's so many people living paycheck to paycheck, but if you budget correctly and you are paying off debt that you need to, there's a video in there on how to pay off debt the quickest, where you actually can have some you know rewards of paying off debt. Paying off debt and budgeting is daunting, so that's why the workbook comes into play, because it walks people through it and it's a workbook they can use for the rest of their life. Everything about it is things that you can carry on, not only when you're rebuilding, but when you're strategizing, when you're investing, all of that. So that's what our six-part financial series is all about.

Speaker 1: 9:11

There is so much to unpack there. Thank you for that. You touched a little bit on retirement and I was watching a video the other day, melissa, and the video was on a 41-year-old woman. I posted, actually, a reaction video to this on my Instagram and it was a 41-year-old lady and she was saying how she is 41 years old, she's a single mother, she has a hundred thousand dollars in school loans, school debt, and she has zero dollars saved for retirement. She has no plan. She's $14,000 in credit card, she's been on food stamps and she's working 10 hour days or she's just working. And at the end of the video she says I'm going to die in her cubicle. She said I'm going to die on my cubicle working and I looked at that and I made a reaction video and I thought to myself I said, man, this is the life of so many Americans that are in this situation, with this idea that we've been sold, that we have to gut in. We tell young people get into debt when they don't even know who they are yet. Get into debt and all this debt. And then now this lady's 41 and she's a hundred thousand dollars in debt. She can't even get out. She doesn't have she's close to retirement 20 years ago like this. We both know that 20 years ago, all done. We have a retirement crisis amongst the many other crisis we have in this country.

Speaker 1: 10:48

When I look at, for instance, when I look at, I like to model success, melissa, so I like to look at people that are doing well. Or I like to model success, so I like to look at people that are doing what I want, and then I like to get in their world and ask them how did you do that? And then I like to bring it into my world and then rent and repeat it, and rent and repeat it. Sure, and what I've done is when I look at people that have believed and bought into the idea of 401k and Social Security and all of this, I've noticed that the majority of people that have bought into that it hasn't worked. It doesn't, it hasn't worked into that it hasn't worked. It doesn't, it hasn't worked.

Speaker 1: 11:37

We're being this is what we've been told that this is the way. What advice would you give, for instance, to that lady that might be listening to us and that's 40 years old? Or that man that's listening to us that's 40 years old, in their forties or thirties and they're like man, I'm behind, I can't afford to buy a house. Houses are expensive, interest rates are high. I got all this debt. Everything's so expensive. Where do they start? How do you start to plan for retirement? How do you start to prepare financial plan when you're in that situation?

Speaker 2: 13:30

Well, it makes it very daunting, like I said, because it takes money in order to pay off debt, in order to work out a budget. The one thing that I know when I was going through my career, the reason I bought into the 401k is because my company matched it. I mean it was like freak money. I mean I put in 6%, they put in 6%, it was an incredible benefit package. If you're working someplace that doesn't offer that, it makes it a little more challenging to prepare for retirement In her case, working 10 hours a day and being $14,000 in debt.

Speaker 1: 14:17

Credit card debt plus $100,000 in student loan debt. Yeah, it's just scary, that's just. And a single mother.

Speaker 2: 14:27

Absolutely Well. Hopefully she's applied for deferment or financial hardship on that student loan, so she's not having to make payments on it right now and she's in a situation where they would approve that. So getting the student loan deferred because of the financial hardship it allows you time to breathe. You don't have to pay that off right now. You can focus on the now. So being able to create a budget and I know people hate that, people hate budgets but you absolutely can't. You can't save, you can't pay off debt, you can't do anything without a budget.

Speaker 2: 15:06

This was the little simple thing that I did. I did it with my son. I did it with literally thousands of women in empowerment seminars. That I did. I told them to get a shoebox, just a shoebox, cut a little hole in it and then for one month, every single dime you spend whether it's a debit, whether it's cash, whether it's credit card put it in the box, put the receipt in the box. I mean every single dime. You have to account for it. So put it in the box. You spend it, put it in the box At the end of 30 days when you take that lid off and you dump all those receipts out.

Speaker 2: 15:47

I mean every single penny and you start adding them up, you would be surprised some of the things that you don't need, that you really don't need as a necessity. You don't need to buy coffee out, you can make coffee from home. You don't need to buy the lunch out, you can bring your lunch. There are so many things that people think, well, that was only $7. This is only $6. It adds up and once you go through all of the receipts and in my financial series you actually can document them what is it that is not a financial necessity? What is it that you spent money on, regardless of how much it is that you could actually do without? Because it's not a necessity, it's a want, it's not a need. So when you start looking at things, even if it's $50, guess what? $50 can go toward either an emergency savings account or to pay off a debt or to start paying off a debt. People get so discouraged because, like I said, it seems impossible. But if you take little steps like that, you can find money that you really don't need to be spending.

Speaker 2: 17:05

Cable, I mean my gosh. If you look at people's cable bills and internet bills, it's outrageous, and so is cell phone service, because they add on so many things that we don't need. And one of the things I find is they trick you with subscriptions. So you might want to watch a TV series and they're like seven day trial $7.99, which then you forget to cancel in seven days. So then they charge you for it and then all of a sudden, the next month they charge you again. So subscriptions is definitely a place for people to look, and I mean on your phone you can look in your settings, you can go to settings subscriptions and see what you have active that you could cancel. You have active that you could cancel. There were so many things that I had, like annual memberships to a fitness app or a yoga app. I forgot about them and then, all of a sudden, 12 months went by and they charged me the $49.99. It was $50 that I didn't need to spend. I didn't need that app. So canceling those subscriptions that you don't need and there are so many that we have that we don't need is another way to get money that you could use for other things.

Speaker 2: 18:24

And one of the things that I learned when I was trying to dig my way out of debt because my ex charged so much in my name withdrew money from our accounts and I was really, really struggling. I had two house payments. I couldn't sell one because he put a lien against it. So it was daunting. I mean, I was literally living paycheck to paycheck. But taking those small little steps, and one of the things that was instilled in me is pay yourself first and I know people think, well, pay yourself first. Yes, when you pay yourself first and it might be the $20, opening up an emergency account, opening up a savings account. If your credit is not the best, you can go to the bank and open up a savings account. You don't need a checking account, because sometimes checking accounts they want to check your credit score and if it's too low they're afraid you're going to bounce checks. A savings account, you don't bounce anything, but don't get a debit card for it. Just if you can put $20, $10 out of your monthly budget into that account, it's going to add up, it's going to start up because you're going to forget about it. And if you have a paycheck, that's automatically going into a checking account. Have that paycheck transfer $20 or $30, whatever you can afford into that savings account that you don't have ready access for. So it's out of sight, out of mind, and then the rest of the money is what you will plan your budget with. You know, getting rid of unnecessary spending and starting to create a plan.

Speaker 2: 20:05

If you have a lot of credit card debt and it's daunting and there's no way you're going to be able to pay interest rates or so they're like 30 percent and the late charge, they're ridiculous. It's a crime. Those type of debts, no-transcript creditors would rather get something than nothing and it might be that they have to work out settlements and it does ding your credit. It does, but credit dings. They don't last forever. They don't negatively affect your credit forever. You can get past it a year or two years. It's not affecting your credit anymore. But it might be something that will let you breathe right now.

Speaker 2: 20:57

And then you know, worst case scenario is a bankruptcy. You know I hate, I know people are like, oh my God, but if it's so daunting and it's so impossible and you can't pay it anyway, going to see a bankruptcy attorney, there could be something that you can do on a chapter 13. That's a repayment plan. They actually take your debt, reduce the payment, you make one payment and your debts are paid off over a series of five years, but it's the interest rates don't accumulate, the creditors can't add more interest to the balances. It might be a way to pay off things and then get out of debt and then, when you're out of that you're out of debt, you can start rebuilding your credit from there. So those are things, that little pieces of advice, that might help.

Speaker 1: 21:49

As it pertains to women. Do you believe that there's a disparity in financial education for women and men?

Speaker 2: 22:16

might not like that answer, but I know in the financial sector most of the top executives are men. They make more money and I'm not bitter because they paid me well I got a great severance. But I do know that most of the women in our company worked extremely hard and had more responsibilities, but our pay wasn't equal. So I do think they have an advantage in that they make more money. They make more money even if the positions are pretty much the same. For whatever reason, I think society thinks that they can pay women less and it's kind of it's sad. It really is. So I do think because they have more money, they have more opportunities to save it, to invest it, to live a better life or whatever, than women. You know, I mean, it's a sad truth.

Speaker 1: 23:11

Would you say that's one of the biggest challenges women face in the finance industry today.

Speaker 2: 23:19

I would, yes, because there are a lot of women in the finance industry, but there are so many more men and the men are the most. They're the higher executives, they are generally speaking. There are women that are the presidents of the most. They're the higher executives, they are generally speaking. There are women that are the presidents of the bank. I'm not going to take that away from anyone who has worked incredibly hard to get where they are, but the statistics and the percentage is higher for men to be in the executive positions over women.

Speaker 1: 23:52

So you were an executive in the financial industry, correct, mm-hmm? Yes, what was that like for you? Did you experience that yourself? Because we're seeing that women are now graduating or higher educated the young women, younger women, mm-hmm. Or higher educated the young women younger women, mm-hmm.

Speaker 1: 24:14

Women have higher education than men nowadays in our country, and a lot of these. Of course, higher education oftentimes equals higher pay and a lot of the. We're seeing an imbalance in some areas now where women are highly better educated than some of the young guys coming out and they're making more money. What was that experience like for you while you was in that role and how did you manage that? Right, how did you manage that disparity? How did you mentally manage that? Because I I hear from a lot of women same thing hey, I got paid less doing the same job. You just said I do more and women are doing more and they're getting paid less. How did you manage? What do you recommend a woman to do to manage that and not be bitter as you are? As you are not, you're not bitter.

Speaker 2: 25:11

I was bitter in some parts of my career when, especially during the merger of our two companies, where I felt, lesser quality men were put over more experienced but, you know, higher quality females and we were training them. You know, we were training them on, you know how to do their job, when they were probably making, you know, twice as much as we were. So it was. It's. It's hard not to, you know, be bitter at the time. Now, because I was in the business a long time ago and worked my way up. I had a lot of opportunities and I was granted a lot of things, but I worked extremely hard, 60, 70 hours a week, I mean, to my poor detriment. I mean he literally grew up as a, you know, an only child with a single parent that worked, you know, a million hours a week and I regret that I really do. So I would say in today's environment, women are more, they're more bold, they really are. I mean, if you feel that there's a disparage or you feel that you're being discriminated, I would go to HR. I really would.

Speaker 2: 26:27

Before women were afraid because of retaliation. But the HR departments I have found unless it's a small family-owned business where they make the rules. In a regular business, hr is separate. It's like the executives don't manage HR. They basically follow federal laws in regard to discrimination and income disparages between men and women in the same role. So if someone feels that that is happening to them, I would go to HR. Hr has to investigate it. Hr has to determine you know, is that the case? Because that is a form of discrimination if you are paying a man higher than a woman in the same position.

Speaker 2: 27:19

So nowadays I think it's years back, it was it Most women would be too afraid. You do want to lose your job. You didn't want your boss to get upset with you. You didn't want now to be demoted because you complained. So there were things back then that I don't think we really had the luxury of being comfortable doing as I think women today do. So I definitely. If you feel that's an issue, at least bring it to HR. Everything's anonymous. They'll do their investigation anonymously. So it's not like oh my God, you did that, you went behind my back. The investigation is anonymous, and then they'll make a determination as to what's fair and then let that employee know.

Speaker 1: 28:19

What would you say we can do to close the gender gap as it pertains to financial literacy and income inequality? I was reading an article not too long ago about this. There is some disparities in male and female pay, and it was an an article not too long ago about this. There is some disparities in male and female pay, and it was an interesting article. There's an interesting perspective, as it was talking about. You just mentioned from a female's perspective, a woman's perspective, how you worked so hard 60, 70 hours, single mom and you regret some of that. And for women it is what it is. You have that maternal instinct and I think that was the perspective and I think that's where they were going with it that with men, we don't tend to have that. We tend to not that we don't have that. We're just built different. We're just different. It just is what it is. We're just different. Our instinct is to provide and protect. The woman has a maternal instinct. It's to nurture their babies.

Speaker 2: 29:21

My wife, still does that with our grown kids, Melissa I still talk to my kids every day Like, stop, you know?

Speaker 1: 29:27

Yes, so it's just the way we are made. It's just an interesting observation that the article is just a different perspective, but I'd like to get your perspective on it. What do you think can be done to kind of close that gap? Because again, like I said, that maternal instinct, I think, might have something to do with it. I don't know, but I'd be interested to know what you think.

Speaker 2: 30:04

Well, I can speak for many of my clients who, when they got married, they decided to take the step back because the husband made more than they did. So they became the stay-at-home mom and they had the children and raised the children, brought them to all their events and they literally did a 40 or 50 hour week job for nothing, for zero money. And so when they're trying to get out of abusive relationships where the husband controlled everything and they were the stay-at-home mom, it's very difficult for them to get a job. It's very difficult for them to even know what to do with money. So research and education if you're going to be a stay-at-home mom, then I would strongly suggest that you're not blocked out of the financial part of it. If you are being blocked out, that is financial abuse, knowing what your spouse or partner or husband or wife is doing and being educated. So many people just put the blinders on and say well, you know, they're handling the finance, they're handling everything, you know that needs to be done financially. I'm going to do everything with the kids. Being blind and I don't mean this as a negative but being ignorant to the financial sector. It sets you back so far when and if you want to get a divorce because of abuse. You literally have no clue what's going on and it definitely puts them behind the eight ball, if you will.

Speaker 2: 31:45

As far as women who want to have kids later in life, let's say they want that career, they want that. I mean, I waited until I was 27. A lot of women are waiting until they're 30, 35. It is what it is. So, starting out with a financial position at a company and being able to, I would say, anything that you can do with your company that talks about financial awareness, financial empowerment, education even though it sounds boring, do it take it. Knowledge is everything, as we know, but understanding how to set yourself up, if you are young and you are going to start your career before children or marriage or whatever, knowledge in the financial sector is huge because at least you are aware of how to invest, how to save, whether or not your company has a 401k, what's the matching, any deferred income you could put into something that is going to be taxed later, all of these things.

Speaker 2: 32:57

I think people go through their life and their jobs early on like almost in a robotic stage. They don't actually look at finances and the future the way they should, and the younger you are, the better it is to do that. Like the 41-year-old woman now, she's like having to start from scratch, whereas a 21-year-old 22-year-old rather than being reckless, being educated won't be in that position when they get to that age, won't be in that position when they get to that age. It's all about, you know, not just not living in the now, but thinking okay, I'm going to live somewhat in the now, but I have to think about how I'm going to live in five years, 10 years, 15 years et cetera.

Speaker 1: 33:48

The challenge is, you know, like going to that woman, the 41-year-old woman and the 21-year-old version of that woman you mentioned a moment ago is that the 21-year-old version doesn't have the resources and the education to get the information Like we have it readily available nowadays. Right, but we are taught that you have to go to school and we think that the traditional education is going to give us everything we need to succeed in life. And that is so far from the truth. Far from the truth. They teach you nothing about money. They teach you nothing about how money works, how entrepreneurship works, how, how, how to invest money, how to get returns on your money. They teach you nothing about that. And then you have a balance.

Speaker 2: 34:42

They don't even.

Speaker 1: 34:43

It's really sad you wind up being 41 and you buy, wind up just and this is kind of where I was going with it, melissa you wind up being 41 years old and you wind up buying into what we were told. You just get your 401k and you do your thing, you contribute to that and social security and that's going to take care of you when you're old. And a lot of people are figuring out that that didn't work or that they just relied on that information that's being told to the masses and being sold to the masses.

Speaker 2: 35:17

Like autopilot. Yes.

Speaker 1: 35:19

Correct and not going out and listening to a podcast like this, listening to someone like you going out and getting the right information, figuring out, okay, how can I get better returns on my money? What are the people that have money? That's the question I always grappled with. Like, how does someone own a $2 million house and has an owns their time? Like I always wanted to know that, like I always want, like, how do you do that? How did like? That was a question I always grappled with. How do you do that? Like, how are you on the beach on a on a Tuesday morning and you live in that house and you drive that? How, when I'm taught you got to go work and how do you avoid that? Right, and it's when you grapple, when you ask those kind of questions, it starts to lead you to get the information. When you knock the door opens, when you seek, you find, and when you ask you shall receive, and you start to find and attract that information, your brain starts to find it. Yet more people don't do that, melissa.

Speaker 1: 36:18

So you know what advice are you giving to a young woman that might be listening to us today and she's grappling with the, the movement of. I'm an independent woman and I have to go get my career and I got to go get the money and I got to go. I want to go do and be me. And at the same time, she's struggling internally with yeah, that sounds great and I, this is what society is telling me to do. But man, I also have this maternal thing that I want to have a family and I want to be a mom and I want to have four kids. And she's fighting internally, she's having that internal battle. What advice, as an older woman, having adult children and been in both, and having been a mom and being a career, successful, career woman, what advice are you telling that young lady?

Speaker 2: 37:17

are you telling that young lady? Well, it's actually a personal decision as to whether you want to work after you have children. You know when, honestly, when I was working and had a small child, it was frowned on. I mean, it was in the place I lived because all of the women there were like tennis moms. I mean, their husbands worked and, um, you know, their kids came home after school. So it was. It was one of those things that, um, I felt really bad about. But it's like what, what am I supposed to do? I have to work, somebody has got to keep the lights on, somebody's got to pay for the food, but it was literally frowned on that.

Speaker 2: 37:56

I was a working mom with a small child and so I would say, today, you, actually, you can have both. I mean, you can have a career and you can have a child and being I hate to say this, but you know COVID allowed this Zoom. You know remote jobs, things like that, and that's what I'm when I talk to people about. Well, you know, I can't go into the office every day. There's so many remote jobs. There really are good jobs. So, if you want to have both, if you want to have a career and also be a mom. The deciding factor is when you have your child.

Speaker 2: 38:40

How do you feel about going back to work, because someone else is going to be taking care of them while you are at work. So it's one of those struggles I have some. I had many, many, many employees that work for me and I had some moms pregnant leave, on maternity leave. I'm coming back. I'm coming back. I love my job. I would never give it up and then, two days before the 12 weeks were up, they'd call me and go I can't leave, I can't do it. I'm staying home with the kids and I respect that because Amen, yeah.

Speaker 1: 39:15

Maternal English is powerful, yeah, it is, it is.

Speaker 2: 39:19

And then I have others that don't have the luxury of doing that. They have to come back, they had to come back to work, and so it makes it A personal decision and also a practical decision. If you want both, can you afford to have both and are you willing to let someone trustworthy be a part of your child's life Because they will be with that child, you know, a third or more of the time than you will be because you're going to be working. So it is definitely one of these deciding factors. But I will say, if you are an independent woman and you want both, don't feel guilty. Don't feel guilty that you want a career because you want a better life for your family and a better life for you and a better future for you. It also gives you more independence it really does than giving it up. But, like I said, it's a personal decision.

Speaker 2: 40:31

It depends on your home life.

Speaker 2: 40:32

If you've got a great marriage and a trustworthy husband or trustworthy wife, then you may want to stay home.

Speaker 2: 40:36

You may want to stay home and invest all that time with your child, because those young ages that's when they're little sponges, that's when they're absorbing things and mothers want to be part of that if possible. If it's not possible, then balancing that. I would recommend definitely trying to be part of the child's life as much as you can, going to the school events, you know, using your vacation for that type of thing, so you can actually balance out the work life timeframe and you're not feeling so guilty about working like I did work all those hours. We just didn't have those opportunities back then, but now they do. I mean, a lot of places have daycare at the work facility. So checking out things like that, looking for jobs that would enhance your work-life balance, depending on what that is, that's what I would recommend. Don't just think you're put on this path and you have to stay on this path and there's no other choices for you. Looking for the other choices takes time, but being on autopilot, it's almost like somebody else is running your life for you.

Speaker 1: 41:55

Yes, being intentional, I love that you said that, and is there anything that you didn't share that you should have shared? That would bring a tremendous amount of value to the audience and myself.

Speaker 2: 42:08

Before we run, One of the things that I would like to say is it's never too late, it's never too daunting, it's never too um, you're not. You're never in too deep to dig your way out, but you have to be intentional. You have to be very, very intentional with it. So many people just think it's hopeless and they're like I'm just going to drudge through life. That is a choice that you're making. It's not the choice you have to make. So thinking a mindset of it is never too late. No matter how old, you can make a difference in your life. You can make it better. But education, knowledge, purpose, drive all takes part of it and it lets you be in charge of your life path rather than somebody else. So I would say, no matter how bad it is, don't give up. Don't think it's impossible, because it is possible.

Speaker 1: 43:12

Yeah, go and ask different type of questions. Go and get educated. Ask a different type of questions. It doesn't have to be where you are and regardless of what the situation is, you might be in a bad place, but people have gotten out of bad places in history. That means, if someone has done it, you can. You just need to find the right information and figure out how to get out of it. Start by asking questions, and if you're listening to this podcast, then you're you're in the right place. You started by even getting the information. But if people wanted to connect with you and they wanted to get your your your video series on finances that you you talked about with the workbook, where can they find that? How do they connect with you, melissa? Where can they connect? My dear?

Speaker 2: 44:07

Our website, which is wwwthe2wcom, has all of our resources. It has personalized support If they need a personalized meeting with me or a session where they can actually tell me their issue and we can work together to create options and solutions that work for them. Or they can click on the financial series. They can click on webinars. We have a lot of resources. We have free masterclasses that people can actually take and learn from. So a lot of our resources well, actually all of our resources are on our website and they're very explicit. So if they just click on it, whatever place they are, they can actually the number 2, Wcom.

Speaker 2: 44:54

Yes.

Speaker 1: 44:55

The V2Wcom. Make sure you guys connect with her and give them your Instagram handle, and you guys are doing some really good work, are you and your husband, which I had? You guys, I had both of you on the podcast here, episode 393,. Guys check that out. If you like Melissa and what she's saying here, I think you should definitely go back and listen to that episode. Amazing, she's got an amazing story. Her and her husband. Go check that out. So where would you give us your Instagram handle, or is all that on your website as well? Your TikTok and Instagram? You guys are doing some really cool stuff on your social media.

Speaker 2: 45:32

Yes, yes, all of our channels are V2W. Victim to warrior, spelled out so V, number two W and then the word victim T-O warrior, and that's our handle on everything. And it represents transformation, going from a reactive victim to a proactive warrior. And I'll tell you, it's possible, no matter how bad of a situation that you're in. I know personally.

Speaker 1: 46:01

And then well, thank you so much for being such a great guest, my dear Thank you for coming back again. I really appreciate that and we'll see you soon, Thank you.

Speaker 2: 46:09

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 46:11

You're welcome.