Balancing Acts ( Aired 02-11-2025) : Balancing Business, Family & Finances

[00:00:00] Speaker A: SA welcome to another episode of Balancing Acts, your guide to grow profit and scale. I'm Linda Hamilton, a cpa, a certified exit planning advisor, and a systemologist. For the past 30 years, I've been looking under the hoods of businesses to uncover what truly drives success. This show is different because we know the numbers matter, but the story behind the numbers matters even more. So many things you do, the activities you do in your business impact your growth, your profitability and your financial stability. So we want to know that you can balance these things in align with your vision and your goal. Today's topic is one that's really important, I think, to probably every listener, our audience, regardless of what size their business is or whether they have a, you know, whether they're working for someone else. I want to call it the juggle. Balancing family and financial responsibilities. How often entrepreneurs, business owners, professionals spend time being pulled in different directions. Your family's pulling needs are pulling you one way, your financial responsibilities pulling you the other. You want to make it to your kid's soccer game or school play or just making sure you're home in time for dinner and there's a client need or a work project pulling you another way. So you feel that there's never enough time and never enough money and that creates a lot of stress. So that's why it matters. When we have so much financial stress in our lives, it can impact our relationships, our well being, our security. And oftentimes we think there's a choice between we have to choose between financial responsibilities and family. But it's really a question of alignment. Choosing to restructure how you do your plan, reframe your financial priorities so that it serves you professionally and personally can help reduce that strain and give you financial confidence. And our great speaker today, our guest, Kendra McDowell is here to help you do just that. Kendra leads Premier Accounting Associates and Premier Health and Human Services. She also owns a production company. She's a mompreneur. She's an advocate for families. And she has a very popular series called the oh for adults and Children. And how many of us haven't had lots of ohs in our lives? Welcome, Kendra. [00:03:02] Speaker B: Thanks for having me. [00:03:05] Speaker A: So let's talk about strategies families can use to balance their budgets and they'll have that entrepreneurial dream. [00:03:13] Speaker B: Right? I get that a lot with my clients when they are making that transition. Right. They're, they have been working for a certain amount of period of time. They have started a business and they scaled it enough to where they can make that decision to now have their entrepreneurship and their business income become their main income. And I think, you know, I always tell my clients it kind of adds another household that you didn't think you had, right? So you would have your home household, but now you have your business household and then whatever's left from that household comes into your main household. I think when individuals are balancing their family budgets while pursuing dreams, it's nice to get everyone on board. You know, I think it's nice to have that conversation that there's this myth that once you start a business, it skyrockets and no one realizes that it's a journey. And it's not a journey that has a straight path. It's a journey that sometimes you get lost like on a gps. It's a journey to where you get redirected. Isn't journey where you might have put all your eggs into this client just to have them not pay their invoice? Because welcome to fee for service. But I. But getting back to. While pursuing your dreams, just make sure that everyone is on board. You know, just having that topic with the family and letting them know what that looks like. You know, prioritizing spending on what you value with, you know, the economy kind of, we, you know, everything is balancing act, right? Reject, you know, we need to kind of prioritize, you know, what we need things for. And then although you may have scaled your business and you made that decision, it's also a good time to say, okay, any more dreams, any more hobbies, let's kind of put them aside. Because now not only do we need income, we need to support disposable income. And that is going to be key. And you know, in budgeting and that disposable income where before you might have wanted to do these different activities, this is my top, top, top thing that a lot of us haven't had a chance to do. And some maybe have an emergency fund. It is so important for families to not only invest your retirement, but more so make sure that you're creating a safety net. Safety net is important as an entrepreneur because like I said, you know, it builds an extra household because now not only from your, your home, your household, right now, it's your business household. If you know, just using as an analogy there, you know, you have your lease, your bills there, right? Your, your payroll, just all these different things that you're responsible for. And then if you're not on salary or however you're pay from your business, whatever's left over is what you get that goes into your Household. So creating an emergency fund for both your business and for your individual family is going to be key in making that happen. [00:06:18] Speaker A: So you raise a great point. There are a couple things that as you shared. One is how actually do you involve everyone in the conversation? Are you sitting down with your family? Are you talking about how much money is available for spending outside of the business? Because your family's not always involved in your business. Right? So how do you go about structuring that? [00:06:42] Speaker B: Right. And I, and, and I'm glad that you brought that up because I just. Marathon race right by it. But here we all know our family dynamics, right? And so we know who can handle being at that table and who would, you know, welcome being at that table. So it's not to create fair fear. So I think over dinner, you know, over dessert, just making it like a nice activity in our family household, we do have family meetings, you know, so incorporating like a family meeting and just making, you know, over dinner because it's a really nice place to kind of have that conversation. And what does that look like to say that, hey, we're experiencing times of uncertainty and we all have anxiety or a bit of nervousness because we don't know what that can look like. So we're going to cut back, stay on fun activities. And so we may have to do activities that are home based, like playing board games, putting together jigsaw puzzles, you know, doing little arts and crafts at home versus going to the movies, you know, going out to eat every Friday, you know, doing those different things. But I think when the family communication is so important, as I coined the O's of life, you know, they come and they can blindside you and they can knock you backwards. And sometimes entrepreneurs aren't the best at telling their family, oh, something's going on here. And so I think this allows, and not only that, workers sometimes too, because the embarrassment, the shame that can happen that they, you know, maybe they don't want to, you know, so there's different conversations. And I think especially if you're married, you have a partner, whatever that looks like, at least you're having that conversation. If you're a single household, you're just letting your kids and just putting them on their, to their understanding, depending on their age, that, hey, you know, we may not be in a fickle, right? Maybe we're just planning so that we don't have to and these are the steps that we need to take in case we need to and so that we can sustain. So sustainability is going to be Very important. [00:08:49] Speaker A: Right. And that sounds like that's a great suggestion for like, coming up. Okay. We have a limited amount of money to spend this month on activities, and here's some we're going to do at home or maybe we can pick just one item outside. But you also talked about, you know, that I love the. The way you positioned it as the business household and the. And your personal household. Right. Because oftentimes entrepreneurs kind of mix them up. Right. And commingle that. And they're very different. Right. The needs you make. Are you getting a salary out of your business? Is your business making enough there? Because that goes into what I said in the open about, you know, it often feels there's never enough time and never enough money. So what do you recommend they do to actually try to have a separation there? [00:09:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I think first of all, they need to like, really put it. Cut the. Put. I can't get it out. Well, how did. What's that saying where they cut the sand? Cut the line in the sand. [00:09:51] Speaker A: Yes. [00:09:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:52] Speaker A: Draw a line in the sand. Thank you. [00:09:54] Speaker B: I got caught there. Draw a line in the sand. Right. And they. And I always say, you know, do it like at a certain date so that bank reconciliations is easy for your accountant. Right. So like going to say, okay, effective February 1st, if I did do anything that I was co meeting my expenses, I am going to stop that effective immediately, and I'm going to do a draw. So if I do need to spend funding from the business and it's set up in that structure where I can transfer, then I'm going to do our owner's draw. But I am going. I think that business owners should start looking forward to paying themselves a consistent amount. And that's why it's important for entrepreneurs and businesses to have a budget so that you know how much you need to be bringing in. And if you're not bringing in enough that you can't cover, say, your portion of your business expenses and then the portion of your household, then that's when you need to come up with an effective sales strategy so that you can grow and then sell again to meet your new financial goals. [00:10:53] Speaker A: Right. And because the sense is, is your business really making money and where is it making money? Because you spend a lot of time, there's that, you know, that struggle between enough time and enough money because you want to spend time with your family. You just, you don't want to just be chasing everything in the business, especially if it's not paying you at all or profitable, because it's wonderful to have this entrepreneurial dream, but it, it also is, has a financial path to it, right? To, to be sustainable. What is one small change people can make to maybe balance that need for, you know, having a financial plan that serves you both personally and in your business? [00:11:37] Speaker B: Well, I think that that one thing they would need to do is be honest. You have to be honest with yourself, right? You have to be honest where you are with your business and where you are with your family. I think having a dream is okay. But when you're trying to take your family to a level where you need to balance and make sure that all their needs are being met, you have to have that honest talk with yourself and be ready to make decisions that may not look like entrepreneur. Maybe that's going back into the workforce because you need to pick up a part time job just to help because it's not there. Or giving yourself 30 days to say, hey, I need to scale it up. So I would say my advice is to have that honest conversation to say, what am I doing? Is it working? What can I do to make it better? [00:12:33] Speaker A: That's great advice. We're going to take a commercial break and we're going to come back and talk to Kendra McDowell about our continuing our conversation about money and families. Welcome back to Balancing Acts, your guide to grow profit and scale. I'm Linda Hamilton, a CPA certified exit planning advisor and a systemologist. For the past 30 years, I've been looking under the hoods of businesses to uncover what truly drives success. The numbers matter, but the story behind the numbers matters as well. And we want to make sure you're prepared to really have all your activities that impact your growth, your profitability and your financial stability. We're talking about juggling family and responsib. In our last session, we talked about how there's not enough time or money all the time. That's what entrepreneurs are feeling when they're trying to balance both. In this segment, we want to talk about the problem of uncertainty. How do you feel about financial chaos? There's uncertainty in the economy. There's uncertainty in so many areas of our lives. That becomes a struggle for an entrepreneur. It becomes a struggle because financial stress impacts your relationships, impacts your life, impacts how you feel about security. And Kendra is here to help us reframe things and have a plan for handling financial chaos and uncertainty. Welcome, Kendra. [00:14:30] Speaker B: Thanks for having me. Yeah. At a time such as this, you know, I always like to lead with gratitude. I think sometimes everything is so chaotic in your life and in your business, business, and there's so much uncertainty. You know, I think that at that moment where you just give gratitude, right? I think having a gratitude practice, not only in your business, but at home, and I can give you an example of what that will look like. I am giving gratitude to the clients that I have and that they pay their receivables on time, you know, whatever. You can customize that to how that looks out for you and just give gratitude for your family. I. I'm happy for my husband or my wife. I'm happy for my kids. And, you know, I give gratitude that I'm able to provide. I had a client's partnership that just crumbled, and they did not prepare for the financial safety net, and they were very overwhelmed. So I can speak to what recently just happened. But I think that, you know, starting small, you want to start small. Sometimes when you have to recalculate your whole life, you have to start small. You're going to have to pick out, okay, what are the priorities? It's like being a Navy. Everything is the top list, right? But you need to kind of, like, pick what that is. I also believe in not just having this with your husband or your wife or your partner, but also, you know, involving the kids. So they know, too, because I think sometimes they be like, oh, my God, mom stressed, dad stressed. I think it's nice for them to know that, you know, Mommy, you know, maybe going through some things because at work these things are happening, and I don't know, and dad might be a little under pressure, but, you know, dad still loves us. You know, he's just nervous because, you know, he doesn't know. We don't want to put fear or make our kids anxious. But I think also involving them, because sometimes kids, they look at what they see. So all of a sudden, if they're asking you a question like, are you going to read me my bedtime story? And you're just too stressed to do it, then they're like, you know, that impacts them. But if you can say, listen, give mommy 10 minutes, we'll probably just have to do a YouTube story tonight, right? But Mommy's just going through some things. I think it helps kids understand and they don't feel like they're not getting your attention, and then you don't have that reaction. I think also automating the process. So when you're feeling overwhelmed, maybe there's some things that you were responsible at home that maybe your husband or your wife you can switch over for a Little bit of time and, you know, leveraging your accounts, right? Your savings, your emergency fund, your billing account, and all that different stuff as well. I think that when you are creating a safety net and you want to do it without feeling overwhelmed, you want to make sure that you're following steps that not only benefits your family, also reviewing your budget, if your budget needs to, say, adjust a little bit, sit down. And as a family, there's a lot of different books. Intuit has products out there where you can look at it on the spreadsheet or, you know, handwrite it down if you're old school. But, you know, looking at a budget, getting a handle of what you're spending. And I think that, you know, just having peace, having gratitude, and I. This is my favorite thing that I always give to my clients. All is well. When you have done all that, you know, to do, all is well. You can't let your mind go, you know, taking you in different places. And so that those are the strategies that I like to give my clients into. Everyone here that, you know, can help. [00:18:25] Speaker A: Out, you know, you raised a great point about children. We're talking about a financial safety net and overwhelm, right? Maybe that creates stress, right? So we bring that home to our children. But what was really interesting about talking to your children is you don't want to create fear, but it's good that they understand money, right? There's nothing wrong with understanding money at a young age. I once heard a story of it was through a financial education program for elementary, junior and high school students, which was very interesting to me. And one of the students that went through it, his testimonial was he wanted a pair of expensive sneakers and he understood what it cost his mother to buy them for him and how important that was and the steps he could take. It made him appreciate it. So helping your children understand the overwhelm, maybe because some of our stress is maybe not wanting to admit that there isn't enough money, right. To maybe give them what they want right now. So when you talk about, you know, that. That budget, of creating a budget, describe for the audience, what does the budget actually look like? Do you start with last year? Do you start with something new? A lot of people don't create a budget. [00:19:47] Speaker B: I think that you should kind of, if you can, start from last year because you least want to have a starting point. But if last year is too far gone because we're already into this year, you start with this year and it's going to look like this. You're going to start with all your income. You know, income could be, you know, money that you're receiving from work. So the salary or wages, it can be contracted work or it can be business income. It could be dividends, you know, payments from stocks. So all of your income that you're receiving in and then you're, then you're going to do it by month for the whole year. Then you're going to look at all your expenses. So your mortgage, your insurances, if you have car payments. So you're going to list all those down. And I can put together a resource to Linda and email that to you that we can make available for our viewers so that they can have something to start them with as well. And the good thing about this is every month or every week you're tracking it. And there's also journals too. I like my favorite is Get It Girl, which is like a little, like, I don't know, quirky little journal that just, you know, helps you to how to give you ideas on how to add or take away things from your journal. But I think keeping track of all those expenses monthly is definitely going to let you know. And then at the end, your income minus all your expenses is going to give your reserve or what your disposable income is. And that is doesn't mean that you should go and spend all that money. As we talked in the last segment, we have to play smart and we have to play in the hands of uncertainty. So if you give to your church or give to any organization that you give to, hey, that's still okay. But what you need to start doing more than ever is create an emergency fund and be prepared for uncertainty. A lot of families, sometimes they encounter financial issues because maybe they just didn't have it, but just making small contributions in the long run would be a great way. [00:21:52] Speaker A: So let's say that maybe a family doesn't have an emergency fund. They've not been budgeting and things and they have a setback. What can you recommend for people to get started? It's never too late to start budgeting and to start that rainy day fund. But what should they do when they have an unexpected, I think when they. [00:22:14] Speaker B: Have an unexpected crisis, you know, of course, you know, they're going to take away from Peter to pay Paul. Right. Something is going to be impacted unless they're able to use debt. Right. But we want to try to stay away from debt. But in that case they would use debt. But I think that sometimes being in that circumstance, being in that predicament is what's going to lead them to say, hey, wait a minute, it's not comfortable because it causes anxiety, it can cause depression. Depression, it can lead to divorce. It can put your family at ease. So I think communication is the key. These are, I like to call them ohs of life. They come and we just have to find joy out of the messy moments and just encourage, you know, as at a family level, hey, this isn't going to last always, right? You know, the, the market or, you know, the economy, it always bounces back. But in anything. And I think this is a good way to talk about even the economy. But the family uncertainty just makes things go, you know, it gives you a gap. But guess what? It balances back. And then we're back better than ever. But at least now we plan. And I think that, so if maybe one of your kids is in everything we say just pick two things, gymnastics or ballet, but we can't do tap, you know, all those things. And I think that making up for those later and just letting kids know that this isn't, you know, going to last for always. And then I think from whether you're working or business standpoint, sorry about that. Then I think that's where you need to kind of figure out, okay, I need to add other funding streams. I need to figure out other ways that I can add income so that I can overcompensate for the areas where we're starting to lack. [00:24:01] Speaker A: That's great, great, great advice. And I think that that's where you're getting started on, even on time. Right. If you're in multiple activities and there's not enough time. Right. That also creates that family stress. That's that balancing family needs and financial responsibilities for, for that we all have a part of. So that's really great. Kendra, how can we find you online? [00:24:30] Speaker B: Yes, My website is www.premier accounting associates.com and you can send an email of inquiry to info at Business Info. I'm sorry, at business@. @ INF. Look at me stumbling over my word. Sorry, info premier accountingassociates.com we all. [00:24:52] Speaker A: We all do it. Thank you. We're going to take a commercial break and we'll be back in a moment to continue our conversation with Kendra about financial responsibilities and. And your family Foreign. Welcome back to Balancing Acts, your guide to grow profit and scale. I'm Linda Hamilton, a CPA certified exit planning advisor and a systemologist. For the past 30 years, I've been looking under the hoods of businesses to uncover what truly drives success. We're different at balancing acts because we know the numbers matter, but we also know the story behind the numbers matters even more. So many things you do, so many activities you do impact your growth, your profitability, and your financial stability. It's all about striking a balance and making sure that you're aligned with your vision and your goals, both personal and professional. So we're talking with Kendra McDowell today about family and juggling both your family needs and your financial responsibility. In this segment, I want to talk about the problem of being present. How many entrepreneurs feel that they have this business, they really want to grow it. They're passionate about their business. At the same time, they're missing out on things at home. They're missing out maybe on making it to the school play, or they're missing out on a soccer game or a baseball game or a basketball game. And there's a lot of guilt that goes with that. And that's at every size of business, whether you have young children or teenagers or middle schoolers, whether your business has been going for years or whether you're working two jobs. The problem is, how do we feel, President, how do we not have guilt over being able to serve both parts of our lives? And Kendra's going to help us work on that directly. So, Kendra, I love that you're both a visionary, a mompreneur, a business owner and an accountant. So I think you're perfect to guide us through this journey of walking through this problem, of being present and being professional and not having guilt around it. So where would you like to start with building your career or your professional life? [00:27:40] Speaker B: I would say building the career without sacrificing. We can start there, right? [00:27:46] Speaker A: Yes. [00:27:47] Speaker B: Yeah. I think for me, I just use myself as an example. One of the reasons why I had started the ohs, right, was because I felt like I was sacrificing so much of the time, and I needed to figure out a way to include my family into the branding so that I didn't have that guilt. And I think as other entrepreneurs and workers, you will feel that same way, too. You know, you have a deadline, so you have to be to work at 8 because you have to, you know, finish it. But yet, you know, your daughter missed the bus or you're getting a call from the school nurse that, you know, Johnny needs picked up, and it's what do you do? And I think that sometimes, and this is kind of sad, right? These, the deadlines, your obligations that you're, that we work on, they don't Have a care of what we're responsible for. But we have those decisions, and those are hard decisions, and we have to balance them out. If we're working, we have a deadline. We cannot have that sales report there. You know, if a client is getting audited and they need these documents, we cannot have that there. So I always like to use like, okay, I know that I'm going to miss this, but how can I make it up to you? I think that, you know, being honest, right, and making sure that you're following through, but giving your family that. I might miss this because I have no choice, but this is what we're going to do. In place of that. [00:29:18] Speaker A: That's. That's really great advice. I think, on that. That honesty part of talking to your family can help them understand. So let's say you do have that deadline, right? You have to make the deadline. But there, you know, there might be some ways, for instance, maybe take a break in between. You know, how can you juggle that back and forth? Do you have any ideas or how you've handled that in your own life? Accounting is driven by deadlines. [00:29:45] Speaker B: Right, right, right. So how I handle it is that, you know, I do set up breaks in between. I also, at my office, I have, like, a conference room slash studio room for my daughter. When she comes to work with me, it feels like she's in our living room. So it's not that much pressure. I always make sure that no matter what I'm doing, we're eating together. And if I'm working on something, you know, I make sure that she. She knows that she's my priority. And so, you know, my daughter, she loves giving compression hugs. So I might say, hey, I need a compression hug now. And that makes her feel involved, and that makes her feel great. So I think with parents just, you know, creating those moments in between, planning it out in detail so that you do have little breaks that you can pause. Call them pause moments, right? Where you can pause, have dinner, pause, have a conversation and pause and just say, how was your day? You know, also, too, I believe in little notes to families like my daughter. Some things she can read because she's so young, and some things she can't. But like putting notes in your children's book bag or their lunchbox just to keep that going on. So they always know that they're on your mind regardless. [00:31:07] Speaker A: That is so insightful. And I have to admit, you know, I've owned a business 35 years, and I didn't always remember to do those Little things you're talking about. I love what you just said about pause moments of being able to break so that you can be present in both ways because time does go for so quickly. How do you help your own clients, many of whom are business owners, Right. Or how do you help them find harmony between work and family life? [00:31:33] Speaker B: Right. So how I do that is I just gauge to them and say that, you know, you have to put your family first, but you also have to make sure that you're there for your business. Because a lot of my clients, you know, their business have scaled and they're the breadwinners, and there are different peaks, I like to call them. So there's peaks in business when there's these high and low moments and different things like that. So I think that we incorporate self care and self care. Sorry, excuse me. And self care, family care. Just making sure that no matter what, you're engaging with your family. So a lot of my clients, they can feel the stress of that. Right? Of being overwhelmed. But I try to ease that by saying that, you know, you have to incorporate in your calendar time for yourself. So that means waking up 30 minutes earlier to do cardio. If that means, you know, skipping, taking your child on the bus, driving them to school just to have that moment with them, I think that's. [00:32:39] Speaker A: That's great because you're just, you know, you're helping to remind them. Because a lot of times I think we just, you know, get totally absorbed with what we're doing and all these responsibilities we have and we forget to take care of ourselves, which also means taking care of our families. But as you said, self care. Because if we can't take care of ourselves, it's very hard to take care of our families. Are there any mindset shifts that someone should take to balance? Maybe personal and professional? What would be a mindset shift that would make it easier to make that change? [00:33:10] Speaker B: Right. I think that when you're thinking of yourself as growth, you definitely have to have a growth mindset. So that mindset has to be, I'm open, I'm loving. You have to. I believe in meditation, right? Meditation, it just takes you at a place where you're walking, place where you're walking in love, and it just has your energy there. I also add to my practice cardio. No matter what I do, 10 to 12 minutes of cardio just. It helps you focus. You know, your body rewards you for it. And then you're able to list out all your priorities that you have for your day. And also Those pause moments that you may need for your family. I think that incorporating all those things and, you know, practicing gratitude is definitely going to help take you there. [00:33:55] Speaker A: Oh, I love everything you're talking about. And it's you. I can tell that you're, you are a visionary about being successful at both business and personal life and being a parent. And so thank you so much for all of these gems you're sharing with us. How about a success story of someone, you know, who's learned to maybe thrive in both areas, the personal and the business that can inspire our audience that there is a path there. [00:34:22] Speaker B: Right. So I have a client, we're going to call her Sarah. Right. And so when Sarah came to me, she had a home based daycare care and you know, having home based daycare, it's a little awkward, right, because you know, you have a lot of foot traffic at home and you know, you have to tend to the kids that are there and sometimes your kids may not feel the separation there. She grew her business enough to where it scaled and she was able to not only buy a larger home, but she was able to have a, a center, child care center where she was able to now have a location where before when she had her home based business, she was doing first, second and sometimes third shift. She made sure that in her news or in her new arrangement that she only did day shift. And then one of her daughters that had graduated college who wanted to. Right. She joined the business and so it made it part of the family. And so this success was just seeing this family, this husband and wife team with their kids, take a vision, start where they needed to start where it was at home, build it, scale it, and support each other during that time. Because I think sometimes in families they don't understand because they see, you know, successful entrepreneurs on TV and they're like, oh, you should be like that. But we need to stress that entrepreneurship is a journey, it is a road and it has a lot of different obstacles on that we have to see. But in Sarah, she was able to, you know, wiggle through those, incorporate family and land. [00:36:00] Speaker A: That's a great story of a journey. And actually also, as we've talked about, involving your family and the decisions, because when your family's involved in the business, you may have different stresses, but there was a plan, right? There is those obstacles along the journey, but there was also a plan for success. So that is a wonderful story. How can people find you if they want to learn more about your accounting business or even some articles you've said you wanted to share about these things. [00:36:32] Speaker B: Right. So my website is www.premieraccountingassociates.com and you can reach me by email info premier accountingassociates.com thank you. [00:36:44] Speaker A: And we'll be back in a moment after a commercial break and we'll finish up talking about family and financial responsibilities. [00:37:08] Speaker B: Foreign. [00:37:18] Speaker A: Welcome back to Balancing Acts, your guide to grow profit and scale. I'm Linda Hamilton, a CPA certified exit planning advisor and systemologist. For the past 30 years, I've been looking under the hoods of businesses to uncover what truly drives success. We know the numbers matter, but the story behind your numbers matters equally as much. It's all about striking a balance between what you've done in the past with your numbers, what the history is of your financials and what you're going to do going forward. Today I want to talk about the problem of maybe some of our audience being in maybe a stressful period of they're already in financial stress, they've had a setback and they're trying to come back, but they often feel like they're never going to catch a break. It's very painful place to be. It's a place of overwhelm. It's a place of not always knowing where to turn. And we want to solve that. We want to remove that stress from your life. And a perfect person to help us find a resolution to that is our guest, Kendra McDowell, who owns Premier Accounting Services, Premier Accounting Associates, and she's also a mompreneur and a visionary. Kendra, thank you for working with us today on family and financial matters. So this segment is really what financial stress to financial freedom. How about we talk about debt? Oftentimes when there's a lot of financial stress, there's a lot of debt as well. What do you recommend for some ways to overcome debt? [00:38:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I think once you realize you're in that predicament, stop, stop with the debt. Right. It may be a hard thing, but you do not want to accumulate any more debt. I think also too just talking to yourself and letting your letting yourself know like I have clients sometimes that they may encounter this and they feel like, oh, I'm the only one and I feel like such a failure. But there's a book that I read called Failing Forward and I usually encourage clients to read that too as well. Oh, just to let them know that this is just a setback for a comeback. So I think, you know, when you financial crisis has already, you know, happened, you just have to embrace, be okay with just, you know, accepting what you have to accept, being okay with planning and navigating the space that you have and what you have left. I think getting to the point where you're able to sustain is going to be crucial, and it's also going to be key. But I think, you know, definitely not accumulating more debt, but just trying to figure out where you can interject and kind of land softly, even if it means, well, I got to cut this out, I got to cut this, or I need a payment plan here. I think a lot of times, too, a lot of individuals that are in financial crisis, they're not comfortable talking to other people that may be like, hey, I can help you out a little bit here, I can help you out a little bit there. So don't be afraid to ask or, you know, talk to someone to kind of say, you know, hey, we're having a little fickle here. [00:40:33] Speaker A: Right, right. And. And I think that's a really great point about talking and asking for help. Some people are going to be in more severe debt than others. And when they're listening, you know, it's. We want to say stop the debt. Or they might not even have any more debt available to them. But one of the biggest problems are the payments you're making on that debt are eating all the cash, eating all the money you need for your life, right? For your business, for your family. So there are some practical ways to overcome that. I guess the first one, there are counselors in. In that area, but do you think they. What about restructuring maybe the payments? How can they work on if they already have debt? What should they do as the first thing they should do if they feel they're in that situation? [00:41:22] Speaker B: Right. I think speaking with a debt counselor, hooking up with a management company so that they can get a handle on those, on the debts, because, you know, they're going to feel the strain of receiving the phone calls and having the stress and, you know, they might not be at the point to file bankruptcy, but they just need to get a handle. So there's a lot of credit counseling courses that are out there. There's a lot of, you know, financial agencies that, you know, help with debt management and creating payment plans that will help, you know, pay over time the debts and at the same time give you affordable payment. [00:42:03] Speaker A: Right. They might be able to lower your payment so that you're not forced into some more extreme. But the best thing is to not stick your head in the sand when you have this problem is to actually ask for Help and go to help, whether it's from nonprofits or others. That's great advice. So let's say they've had a cycle of debt. How do they start to build wealth, to build savings? What would you do? If that's kind of been your cycle. [00:42:28] Speaker B: For years, you have to change your mindset because in order to have gotten there, something had to happen maybe. And I think that's where you have to do the evaluation, right? To kind of look in to say, okay, what happened? And it's not about blaming yourself. It could have been just your ER was too high. There's a lot of different factors to what that could be. But I think that making sure that you believe in yourself, you're not tripping yourself up to say, oh my God, this is going to happen again. But just like looking at a clear road and putting in place safety nets and safety measures so you don't have a setback, setback again as you're rebuilding wealth. [00:43:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I guess you can start to save to have like you talked about earlier, a rainy day fund or something. But absolutely it's not about guilt. We don't want our audience to feel bad. Some people end up in this situation that it's no fault of your own. There are ways for help and the best thing you can do is ask for help and to find it. And there's lots of places to find out. I'm glad you said that. How about, let's talk about, you know, mindset a bit. There's a lot of mindset issues around money, right? Of whether you're, you're spending for status or you're maybe, you know, you spend money because you've been short of money and you get some and oh, you want to just maybe spend it on, on feeling that need for things, you know, that need versus want versus maybe paying down your debt. What could you say about or what have you experienced even in, in your practice of dealing people who have issues around money? [00:44:09] Speaker B: Right. I always tell them to prioritize. I'm like, you can get there. But my favorite quote, slow and steady wins the race. You know, nothing fast. It took your mom nine months just to meet you. There was a lot of process going on here. And so I think that getting the mindset of not now, what I see sometimes in a lot of clients that try to scale rush, their business doesn't last. And with within one to three years, their business is totally dissolved. So I always try to incorporate that, especially during our check ins, to say, you know, we ask those Questions. But to make sure that you have to have the right mindset. I also tell my clients, I'm only as good as you believe, think and act. So when you're out there, you're representing me. So let's represent each other the best way. And I think just making sure and advising them to make the right kind of purchases. And if they do want to make that, create a milestone or do something, if you, you know, whatever your business is, add that as a reward. But I think focusing on the basis being, okay, where you are, planning for where you want to go, but following the roadmap and not trying to take it off like a rocket. [00:45:26] Speaker A: Oh, I love that. That's great advice. You just said that you had check ins with your clients. Talk more about that. Is that something you do regularly with all of your accounting clients? [00:45:36] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So every quarter we kind of check in to see where everyone is. I would say, though, although I'm the number cruncher, a lot of my, I would say a lot of my time goes just to really building the client up. Like they go, I solve so many problems, they have crisis, you know, whether it be in family home. And so a lot of my job is just saying, you're okay, you got this. You know, we can do this and then actually, you know, implementing what we can do to resolve it. But the check ins, it helps both of us so that we're not, you know, blindslighted at the end of the year. Some of my clients, we might have it a little bit sooner if they're working on a different project, but it just helps me so that I'm not like, oh. And they're not like, oh, you know what I mean? So we know that every quarter, you know, we're going to have a check in and we're going to talk and go over things. [00:46:27] Speaker A: That's fantastic. So you'll be able to do, you know, accountants, there's a reason we're often considered trusted advisors. Because your life, your business, your money, your taxes, it's all related. And having somebody that you trust that understands you can really make a difference, I think, in your success in business and in helping you juggle that family and financial responsibility. What's one piece of empowering advice you'd share with our audience about, especially if they feel stuck. What can they do to feel better? [00:47:03] Speaker B: Well, my favorite quote when you feel stuck is if you can tell yourself that this doesn't last. This won't last forever. This will not last forever. And then if you can convince yourself that all is well. But if you're stuck, you have to make a move for action. You can't sit there and just tremble. You have to start making action steps. If they're small milestones, that's okay. But you have to continue moving forward. If you need a pause to just get a grip on yourself and on the situation. But you must keep moving and not lay stagnant. [00:47:41] Speaker A: That is one of the best pieces of advice I'd ever heard. Take action so you're not stuck. Even if it's a tiny little step. What's the smallest step you can take to feel unstuck? Kendra, it has been wonderful talking to you. You've shared some really amazing insights with our audience. How can people find you on your website? How about your social media? What's the best way to find more about how you help people? [00:48:04] Speaker B: Yes. So on my social media, my handler is Kendra N. McDow. My email info premier accountingassociates.com and our website is www.premieraccountingassociates.com. [00:48:22] Speaker A: Thank you again. It was wonderful talking to you and I can't wait to talk to you again. [00:48:27] Speaker B: Likewise. Thanks for having me. [00:48:28] Speaker A: Come back and watch another episode of Balancing Acts next week. [00:48:35] Speaker B: This has been a NOW Media Network's feature presentation. All rights reserved.