Speaker 1 0:00

Hola , welcome to another episode of the Money Chisme podcast . I am Violeta , your host , and here on the Money Chisme podcast we talk about money and finance and entrepreneurship , but I also share the stories , the money journeys , and just like stories from our community . And so with me today to share her story . Her journey is Heather Reese , and she is here to just you know , share her story . Her journey is Heather Reese and she's here to just you know , share her journey , which is pretty interesting because I'm curious to talk about , because she has an interesting background . But I'm going to turn over to Heather so she can introduce herself . Hello , heather , thank you so much for being here .

Speaker 2 0:40

And thank you for having me . Hello everybody . So my name is Heather Reese and I am an attorney in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania . I am also Latina , I am adopted from Peru and I also do plus size modeling and content creation . And my biggest thing now is I started a series on Instagram where I showcase Latino , Latina and Latinx businesses , and my money journey has been one that is very unconventional .

Speaker 1 1:08

In the Latino community , we always talk about like how , growing up we didn't have many talks about money . So , especially , like you know , first gens

Meet Heather Reese: Lawyer and Creator

Speaker 1 1:17

like myself or whatever , are like trying to figure out finances as they go . So I'm interested to hear your side , because you were actually adopted by Jewish parents , right ?

Speaker 2 1:28

And so I want to go through your story how that went , yeah , so I was adopted by a Jewish mother and I guess you could call him like pseudo-Catholic agnostic , I don't know the right term for him . Father and my Jewish upbringing was pretty like close knit , like I went to a private Jewish school for kindergarten through sixth grade and my mom was like a very successful female scientist Growing up . My dad worked at like , worked at the same place , worked at a lab in the building that she was in , and I feel like money was never , ever talked about , like it was just , it was like uh , my mom would kind of say it's like a taboo thing to discuss , um , because it wasn't like we were hurting for it . So I think that was the big thing is that she was just like you don't ever want to come off um , you know , overly privileged , but be , but always be aware of your privilege , never , ever hide it , never pretend you don't have it , because it's disingenuine . So , yeah , I mean for me like money wasn't a big thing we talked about growing up at all Like I think me and my sister and my brother were all adopted .

Speaker 2 2:43

Me and my sister are both from Peru . My brother is from Honduras . Our parents were very open about our adoption . We had maps of our countries when we were growing up . We had toys , we had money from our countries and little jewelry boxes . So it was really cool .

Speaker 2 2:59

But , yeah , money was definitely not something we really talked about ever , like it was , and I don't know if that's like very common in the Jewish community . I just know that that's how it was in like my family upbringing is that it wasn't like something that we had a long talk about , which I really think did a disservice to me as I became an adult . It was very much like don't be flashy , don't be taboo , because it is taboo to be that way , because we didn't want to . You know , there's that old money versus new money kind of concept and it was , and I think it was , like my mom was the breadwinner . You know what I mean . My mom was making way more money than my father was making and that was already , you know , in the nineties , seen as kind of like you know , in the 90s , seen as kind of , like you know , controversial happening .

Speaker 1 3:45

So I think she was very much like just be humble and um , you know , hopefully you'll figure out money yourself so , uh , so what kind of like scientists was she like , just kind of like doing research or or like what kind of stuff was she's doing , if you're able to say it ?

Speaker 2 4:05

because I don't know now . She was a computer scientist at first , um , and then she worked on some dna sequencing of something and she would be so mad that I can't remember because she thought it was so cool and I'm sure it is so cool . People that don't know her um , but no , no , I know that she worked computer scientist for a long time . She was one of um , like one of the first women in a group . She was working at DuPont at the time in Delaware , which is like a big company . But yeah , I don't know all the details of all the stuff that she worked on . I just know that she traveled a lot .

Growing Up: Money Was Never Discussed

Speaker 2 4:39

And that when I was younger I used to take your daughter to work day and I used to get to go and see her at work and it was like I would never really understand what's happening . I just knew there were giant computers and she would go into something called debug mode , which meant like I couldn't bother her because she was trying to fix some problem on a computer and I would never know what it was . But like computers had been around my life since I was like before I could talk like she would . She would say like other kids were playing and you like with games and you were playing with javascript on your computer . I couldn't tell you what javascript is now , but as a kid .

Speaker 2 5:14

That was , you know , going to her office . That's the things that I had to play with .

Speaker 1 5:17

So , um , yeah , I mean that's what she was yeah , it's funny because , um , when I was younger , we had the whole myspace stuff and like it wasn't until like um more recent years when it started coming up was that we were all kind of like coders and I was like I was , like I didn't even realize this , what we were doing .

Speaker 2 5:39

I was just trying to put a song .

Speaker 1 5:40

We were trying to . I was just trying to put a song and make my page look all cute and stuff and have the things come down like I remember .

Speaker 1 5:49

I love that , I love the little sparkly things that come down or whatever , and oh man , I do kind of miss that sometimes . But yeah , so so you mentioned that that you went to private school . So I'm curious like , uh , what about in private school ? Did they kind of like have any type of finance classes or things ? Because I'm trying to remember in my schools I think , uh , I remember like there was one class that we did balance a check and uh , like that's the most I can remember of learning for the most part . So I wonder like if in private school they did that or not .

Speaker 2 6:30

No , so I went to private school from K through sixth grade and I went to a private Jewish school where you like learned Hebrew half the day , english half the day . It was like a very small school . There was 12 kids in the class in my grade and they were the same 12 kids from kindergarten through sixth grade . But they did have something that was called a spiral curriculum which , like , introduced you , if I recall correctly now I mean , somebody could probably tell me I'm wrong , I don't remember but it would be like it would teach you a concept two years before you were actually going to learn it . So when you learned it it would not be foreign to you is the way I remember understanding it . So I would learn two years ahead of my grade every year and .

Speaker 2 7:13

I do remember going into my next school like very advanced , but um , also I had a private one-on-one teacher , like I had a private one-on-one aid because I had ADHD and no one taught me about money . No one ever taught me about money . Like that's the funny , that's the gag of life , right ? Is that I didn't learn about money until I was 32 years old and I was going through a divorce . And then , very quickly , I learned about money .

Speaker 1 7:42

From high school you went to college . Obviously , as soon as you got your lawyerate it's like so how did that go ? Were you just like not paying ?

Speaker 2 7:52

attention .

Speaker 1 7:54

Literally not paying attention . You were like me , where I was just like just not really having a budget or anything .

Speaker 2 8:02

No , it's so embarrassing . So I went to college , right ? Well , no , no . Before I went to college , I was in high school . I met my ex-husband when I was 17 years old . I moved in with his family when I was 19 . They took full financial responsibility of me oh , wow um , I went to college .

Speaker 2 8:22

Then I went to college around , then my mother paid for my college and my mom paid , I think , for one year of my law school . And then I took out loans and I got to tell you , no one explained to me any portion of these loans and any concept . I was just like , okay , okay , okay , sign thing , yeah , free money , yeah . And so I think that was where the disconnect is right Is , I went from , I , I went from one home to another home where I didn't have to worry about money because my in-laws , I didn't pay rent . They never asked me for , they never asked for us for a dime .

Early Marriage and Financial Dependency

Speaker 2 9:01

You know , even when I was working , like my , they , they , they paid for everything . They really took care of me . Like you know , when I went to law school , anything I could have ever needed , like in law school , they , they always paid for . Um , we were , we were .

Speaker 2 9:17

The plan was because we'd gotten married , we were then inheriting the home and that you know , my ex father-in-law , significantly older than my ex mother-in-law , and she was like , well , you guys will just live here and take care of me and I love her . Like , even to this day , we're best friends , like we're going out , we're going out later this week , and I was like , yeah , that sounds great . Like I , I love a family dynamic and you know I would never want to leave her . So I never thought about money , like money had no concept because I had a paid off home , yeah , and you know , any money that was coming in was mine . And what I , what I kind of agreed with with my ex-husband , not knowingly was that they had made this seem like it made sense . They had said , well , you know , your ex-husband doesn't have any , any , any like credit debt , right , like he doesn't have any student loans . So we'll make sure we take out all the debt in your name because you already have the negatives against you .

Speaker 2 10:16

So one person will have completely clear , cool credit . And it sounded great because , again , I was like I'm never going to get divorced , I'll be , we'll be together forever . This is fine , we have a home . Well , everything came crumbling down when we got divorced at 32 and I and I had inherited all the debt and I had no idea . I had no concept of rent , no concept of money , no concept of credit , like I remember people telling me about credit when I was in my twenties and me being like , oh , I don't care .

Speaker 1 10:47

I don't need credit .

Speaker 2 10:47

I already , I , I'm , I'm going to own this home Like we're owning this home . I don't need credit . I already I I'm going to own this home Like we're owning this home , I don't need to worry about it , I never have to apply for anything .

Speaker 2 10:54

Yeah , and boy did that backfire . So talk to your kids about credit , even when they get married . Cause , darn , I mean like that , that was . That's crazy to me . Cause , at 32 , it was embarrassing to have to go to like financial advisors and like get turned down for renting and getting a home when I make a significant income , but because my credit was so bad , because I I wasn't even like monitoring , like there was no monitoring of anything going on oh wow .

Speaker 1 11:27

So like did they ? Just like ? Leave you with all the debt and then you , or like what ?

Speaker 2 11:33

happened there , I mean . So they paid for a lot of my life when I was growing up . So I have I have no ill will towards them in any , in any aspect . There was an agreement that was made . I decided to eat it . There was a large portion . There was some portion that was paid to me and it was .

Speaker 2 11:51

But at the end of the day , like trying to rebuild something from nothing , is the problem right ? Like he didn't have to rebuild anything . He had like a 720 credit score . I had like a 510 . Like I mean we were dealing with totally different things , because I didn't .

Speaker 2 12:07

There was a lot of things I didn't even know that were getting done , because I didn't care , we were husband and wife . Because I didn't care , we were husband and wife . You know what I mean . And again , when people tell you this fairy tale , like you're going to own this home , you're going to do like you don't have to worry about money and truly I wouldn't have if we had stayed together . But you know , the chips fall where they may and then you kind of have to deal with it . And I said I'm a lawyer and they were like we don't , we don't care . I was like check my income and they were like no , no , we don't care that you make this much money , we that you have bad credit , and I'm like what ? That's real . That thing is real crazy it's so embarrassing .

Speaker 1 13:00

yeah , that's one of the things that like , uh , people don't understand about credit .

Speaker 1 13:04

And it goes the other way too , like , um , you not having any credit , or like having a credit but not using it , which is the weirdest thing , right , you have to .

Speaker 1 13:16

In order to build credit , you have to use your credit , which is like okay , well then , how do I use you know ? Right , it's like okay . So , yeah , like are people that are make good money and able you know more than enough to afford a certain thing or whatever , but they get turned down because they don't have the right types of accounts , like they don't have

Divorce at 32: Financial Reality Check

Speaker 1 13:40

long term debt , they have just a credit card and they never use the credit card , they just have it there and so they're like getting denied and it's like it's really crazy . Once I figured out , like how credit works and , um , the whole time growing up , like I was told like , yeah , don't use any type of debt or credit or anything , I think that I will say , uh , having that mindset from from my , from my mom and my dad , that , uh , they were so scared of debt , like that's the only thing that saved me from student loans .

Speaker 2 14:13

that's smart see , I wish my parents had done that .

Speaker 2 14:16

Yeah , I was like it's not real , it's monopoly money it's fine , I just remember swiping credit cards like I had a credit card to every single like retailer that you could probably think of and also because no one really explained things to me . I closed accounts so I would fully pay them off and then I would close them . And it wasn't like it wasn't like I was leaving them up and paid off , like the second I got some money . I'd be like oh , I'm going to pay this off and then close it , and then they were like somebody said to me that's hurting , you Don't do that , leave them open , they're paid off .

Speaker 2 14:46

Well , I was supposed to just get rid of this . Boss got credit card . Like I mean it's crazy . And it was like , yeah , it was scary . I mean it definitely it's been a journey . It still is .

Speaker 2 15:05

Like I mean , I think people have a conception that because I'm a lawyer , I have my life together , and that is far from the truth , because you know , you know when divorce happens and you kind of you rebuilding yourself . And I think I really tried hard to destigmatize the fact of saying I don't know and I'm lost . You know what I mean . Like I think that was the big thing . I I reached out and I was like I have no idea what I'm doing with money . And if I don't , if a 32 year old lawyer doesn't know , then I don't know what we're teaching other kids . And like , if I'm not embarrassed to tell you that I had , like a credit score of like a 500 , then like don't be embarrassed . Like because embarrassing , like me sitting here and being embarrassed wasn't going to help it get better . I was just going to like get stuck in this wave of me being more and more upset of like how did I get here , how did I get here ? Instead of being like how do I fix it ?

Speaker 1 15:55

yeah , yeah , so , yeah , that's one of the things is like this , this avoidance of the issue , and so I'm glad that you decided to like , yeah , well , well , uh , yeah , it's it sucks . I gotta figure out how to fix it now . So , so what was that process ? Like what I guess ? Like , take us through a little bit of that journey , like you realize that , oh shit , like all my stuff is jacked up and everything . So what did you do ? Like I guess first you kind of mentioned that you did financial planning a little bit .

Speaker 1 16:29

But , is that what you did first ? Or like ? Did you just like ? What was it ?

Speaker 2 16:33

Oh , first I just like , was like panicking , right , so I didn't do financial planning until much later . But first I just said I was like all right , I'm gonna write down every single credit card that I have and I'm going well . First I set my student loans up for auto pay . Then I said what I'm going to do is I'm going to take every single credit card I have and I'm going to just pay the lowest amount or not the lowest amount . I'm going to pay the lowest credit card . So I was like , if I have this credit card for $100 , I'm paying it off , not closing it , paying it off .

Speaker 2 17:02

So I paid off , I think , around four credit cards and then I said , all right , well , the next bonus check I get or my next referral check at my job , I'm going to use those . I'm going to do the same thing again and I'm going to start backtracking and just paying off credit cards . Now , later I found out I should be paying the credit cards with the highest interest or whatever . But at the time I was just like no , I'm just going to get them off my credit report . I just want to make sure that you know I'm , I'm paying whatever I can , cause I cause in my brain , which I know is not correct now , I said well , I'd rather have only three credit cards , even if they have a super high interest rate , and I'm and I'm paying the minimum on them , that have five at all .

Speaker 2 17:45

Right , like I wanted to pay off those three to get to that point , or those two . So that's what I did at first . I also saw some like TikTok where it was like pay 15 months before your due date , 15 days before your due date , and then pay , and it was like that'll raise you . And I remember trying all these little schemes . I was like maybe that will do it , maybe if I do that it'll fix it . But yeah , no , it's definitely a lot of . It was watching tiktoks and and reading .

Speaker 2 18:14

And then you know having to bite the bullet and talk to other people and say like , like I remember having to call , like my , my , you know , my mom's friends and being like hey , I , I know everyone thinks I got it together , but like we really don't . And I just need , instead of like judgment , because I think it's so easy to be able to judge people about money

Rebuilding Credit and Financial Literacy

Speaker 2 18:33

and trust me , like I judged myself , like I was like how did I let myself get here ? And I think what was worse is telling people how I got there , right , people being like wait , you took all the debt . And I was like , yeah , I mean , I know it sounds crazy when you say it , but when I said when they , when I said it when I was 17 years old it's a fairy tale .

Speaker 2 18:56

It didn't sound crazy . It sounded like I was choosing to be with somebody for the rest of my life and you know , our life together was going to be fine . I didn't really even factor it in . And it's like at 32 , if somebody were , if my , if my now fiance were to say , take the debt , I'd say go get rocks now at 32 , I know better , like I always say to my fiance .

Speaker 2 19:15

Now I'm like you know , when it comes to money , like we , we , we like check in once a month and , um , we go through , we go through the credit cards all together and we say , all right , write down all the credit cards again , let's see , you know , when one of us gets a like , a like an end of the year bonus , like , or uh , or like a referral , like I just got a bonus , and I said , all right , we're gonna write down both credit cards , both people's credit cards , and we're gonna go through them again . And you know , when he gets his , we're gonna do it again . And I think , like for me , that that was the beginning . So the beginning was me paying off the credit cards with the lowest balance .

Speaker 1 19:50

Yeah , and I will say like , yeah , there's like strategies for credit cards , but I just like to say like whatever is something that's going to keep you paying the credit cards is what's like , because there's no point of like doing like the higher interest . But then you get , like you lose motivation because you feel like it's not going nowhere and so you just like give up , Whereas like how you were doing it , you like seeing that , okay , one checked off , another one checked off , and then you get some . So it's whatever like actually helps you reach the goal .

Speaker 2 20:25

in my opinion , the checkmark is the big thing . Right Like ? I think that's for me . I think the big hit to me was in the confidence where I said , damn , I'm really at a place where I'm a 32 year old professional and I'm I have the credit of somebody who has been like I don't even know what right Like , and I think for me , like even now , like I still pay off the lowest things , like , and then I , and then I I do that thing where I like take the credit card out of my wallet and then I go put it somewhere where I can't touch it .

Speaker 1 21:04

And I'm like all right .

Speaker 2 21:04

Well , I'm not going to touch this credit card for like a year , right Once I pay it off .

Speaker 2 21:08

I'm not going to touch it for a year . And then I'm going to work on the next one . I'm not going to touch it for a year Because , you know , when I first did it , I paid almost all of them off and then I ran them all right back up . Because it's like then I started living again , right ? So once I got myself back into a good space I was like , okay , well , I'm getting an apartment , I need to get furniture for apartment , I need to get a bed , I need to get all this stuff . And I ran everything back up again .

Speaker 2 21:41

And it's so easy to get in that mindset , especially like when you know your income is decent , right , like when you know your income is decent , the like zero interest sounds great , right ? Like so many furniture companies are like zero interest If you pay it off by the state . Well , I never listened to that . So then I end up paying interest anyway because I end up not paying it by the date . And I'm like , well , see , that's just me not being as responsible and not financially sound . Now I'm like when somebody hands me something , I'm like I gotta read this whole thing , I gotta put the dates in my thing . I know it's annoying to you .

Speaker 1 22:08

I'm sorry , but like I've just gotten played too many times , I play myself , so I have to really be like holding myself accountable , because if not , I refuse to let myself get in a situation like that again yeah , yeah , and that's why I I feel like it's important to share our stories , because it's so easy to see like the big , you know financial gurus or influencers or whatever , and they're like , oh , I'm a millionaire or whatever , and it feels like it's unachievable and like it's not really relatable when the reality of most of our stories are going through things like that , learning things the hard way , like we , um , like I did , like you did , and we tend to just kind of hide that aspect of our journeys in with money . And I feel like it's important to share that and that way people don't feel so much of the shame and guilt . It's like it's just part of life , it's part of like , um , it would be awesome if we didn't have to go through that by you know , like you were mentioning .

Speaker 1 23:15

Okay , now we teach the next generation not to fall for some of these things that we fell for and um , but we gotta show our our uh downfalls too and how uh we picked ourselves up . So you're back up on the picking yourself up and learning and and you said you went to financial advising or financial planning and things like that . So it sounds like you're you're you're on the right on the , on a good track now .

Speaker 2 23:46

Yeah , I'm trying hard . It's definitely like . You know , things are so tempting to go on by buy , especially like for me , like when I get a big check , you know , I'm like , I'm like , oh god , you know I could get all this stuff . And then I really have to remind myself . I have to be like no , like that's just not , because back in the day that was my life , right when I was , when I was married to my ex-husband it was like if we got money , it was money that we got and we could do anything we want with it . Now I'm like all right , well , I want to have children next year . Like I want to be able to feed my children . You know what I mean . Like you know , I have a partner now who's who works at a bank . So like he's always like what do you mean ? You didn't read that ? And I'm like what do you mean ? I'm supposed to read it . And he's like , yeah , like he's like I tell you this all the time . So like he's definitely more financially aware than I ever was , because he he didn't , you know , he didn't much understand . So it's , it's always interesting , you know , entering a space where I'm like oh wow , you guys all know this kind of stuff and I'm like , well , thank God , because I don't . So it's been , it's been , it's been great . Because for me , like , I definitely need that , that accountability with my partner too .

Speaker 2 25:12

Because I think the other problem is a lot of the times people get in relationships with people where two people are both living in a living beyond their means . Right , and that's really how it was with me and my ex-husband . We had no sense of money , uh , no sense of means , and now , very much like my , my fiance will be like , uh , do we need to go out and eat dinner tonight ? Like , can we just eat ? You know the 30 things we have in the home ? And I'm like , yeah , and he's like , no , we should do that . Like , you know , we're going to do the savings book . You know we write down all this stuff . Like I said , we have money check-ins where we're kind of like you know both like , hey , you know , this is what we have to put in the pot this month . Like , let's start making sure we save up . So it's a journey , and I think I always said I was going to be completely transparent . When I went on the Internet , I started going on the .

Speaker 2 26:03

Internet two years ago , when I went through the divorce and the Internet saw the good , the bad and the ugly and I said I might as well take them on this journey too . They might as well hear it because you're right , it is . There are so many content creators and influencers that have lavish lives and like are out here with like a you know a Prada bag and like skiing in the Aspen and I'm like , well , I'm going to probably use just fly to pay for my ticket to go to .

Speaker 2 26:30

Colorado make seven easy payments , um , and and I'm going to be wearing an outfit from um , I don't know Target cider Like I mean , for me it's just you put it into perspective and I think I really always wanted to be as authentic and real and let people see like , even people that expect you expect to have it all together , don't like .

Speaker 2 26:51

I'm sure it was a shock to a lot of people when I came out and was like I'm

Finding Accountability and Transparency

Speaker 2 26:56

like not only broke , I'm like beyond broke , Like I'm in debt because I , you know , when you go through a divorce , you were like you're talking about that and I'm like , yeah , I mean , because if I'm not , no one I mean everyone expects it to be like I don't know . I just feel like it's tough to relate to influencers and content creators when their life always seems perfect and I think there's a stigma on the like everyday person to have everything together . So when you see people that you expect to have it together or not have it together , I think it's like a nice refreshing taste . It's like watching like the reality show , that like is like a train wreck , like I'm that , I'm that train wreck . That's like going up and it's like working out , but I want you to see that there's still times where it's like you know , I'm like not doing all that well yeah , um , I'm kind of the same way .

Speaker 1 27:47

I'm trying to kind of like show , uh , the the reality of a lot of stuff , because you'll see , like with um , real estate investors , you see , like the ads and stuff , I see them all the time and they'll be like oh , I'm a billionaire , I have a over a million blah , blah , blah , and it's all like rainbows and and sunshine over there , and it's like the reality is different , like especially the first few years of when you get into it . It's like you actually sometimes you lose money , sometimes you make money or whatever , and it's a up and down cycle . 2024 was rough . I just ran the numbers like overall I still came out at least making some money .

Speaker 1 28:33

Money , but not what I had planned because so many issues and I share that , because it's important to share the journey and share the reality we still are gonna get there , you're still gonna get and you know , get done with your dead and come back up and then you know put yourself back on top and same with with me and everything like that . But we don't need to like sugarcoat it and show like at at the end because , like you said , you could just like hide it and then all of a sudden , when you are good , like , oh , look at me , or whatever , but hide all the the the downs that you had .

Speaker 2 29:10

So I'm glad you're you're being very authentic , thank you yeah , I mean , I think the journey is half of the ride , right . I mean , for me it's like , it's like nothing hits you , like your life changing in a in a day , and I think that was the big thing , like people were shocked that I wasn't embarrassed and I said I can't get any more embarrassed .

Speaker 2 29:30

Like nothing in my entire life will ever , ever , ever make me feel embarrassed more so than me , literally like my husband left me a week into my brand new job and a day before our anniversary and I had to go back to work and everyone at my job was asking me how my anniversary trip was and I had to say , um , it was a trip . And then I had to speak to people that have known me less than a week and say , hey , we got a real issue right now because , you know , my husband just left me and I am now not going to be living in that home and I have to figure out where I'm going to live and what I'm going to do . And my boss at the time , who I still I was still at the firm now was so gracious , so kind , was like we will do anything . We can tell us what you need . Do you need us to help you get an apartment ? Do you need us to help you get your , your dogs ? Like what do you need us to help you do ?

Speaker 2 30:28

Let me work like two days a week for almost seven months , probably like my first year there , because I was like , hey , guys , like this is I , I'm figuring out where I'm going to reside . Like , I have my clothes in the back of my car . So I mean , I think nothing could embarrass me more than having to talk to people that had known me less than two weeks to say , hey , my life just shattered apart when you just asked me how my anniversary trip was , and um , now I need to tell you that I can't be at work .

Speaker 2 30:58

And um so I mean , the money thing was so secondary to that . So it was like it was like you know , I , I shouldn't , I didn't do anything wrong , I'm not going to get embarrassed by anything decisions that people make , and all I can

Embracing Independence and Shared Journey

Speaker 2 31:12

do is , you know , build myself up and try to get back to the starting line . And then also , like there's a different level of appreciation , I have doing it myself . Like I think about that all the time . Like , even when there's struggles with like money and stuff , I'm like well , I'm paying my own rent . Well , I bought this . Like this'm paying my own rent . Well , I bought this . Like this is my bed , this is my table . Like you know , when me and my fiance were furnishing our apartment , it was like it was like for him he had lived in other places before , he had had his own place before , but for me I had never .

Speaker 2 31:46

And at 32 , I got to experience all these amazing firsts because I got to be like , oh no , this is mine . Like this is this , is this thing that's actually mine . You know , when I got my car , you know , signed over to me , like I'm like , oh , this is mine . Now , this is like my stuff that I own and I have responsibility for , and I think that's also different , you know , when you look at things through your own pockets . It's like my mom used to say well , if you were paying for college , I'm sure you'd show up to class every day . And I think it's like that with like life . Right now that I know I'm paying for it , I'm like I'm going to treat it better , like . I'm like go , don't jump on that . You know what I mean . Be nice to that couch .

Speaker 1 32:28

Like now I'm different Cause circle with , like all the things that your parents tell you well , I'm glad that you're , uh , you're , you're , you learn , you're learning from that and coming back up and that sounds like going through a cool journey . Um of you know , basically kind of like self-discovery too , because you start learning about yourself as you go through your , your money journey . And for those that are like interested in following your journey , where can they reach you ?

Speaker 2 32:59

Yeah , so I'm on Instagram the most . It's Heather , underscore r , xoxo . And yeah , I mean there , I'm on there . I'm on threads . I'm pretty active on threads . I love threads . It has all of my intrusive thoughts , so good . Threads is a great place to also find stuff . But instagram is my main base and I honestly like , if people ever want to reach out to me because they feel like they have something to be embarrassed of , please I am . I will love to tell you some embarrassing stories and I'd love to make people feel good because at the end of the day , like , if a lawyer doesn't have it together , then he does not . Embarrassing if you don't have it together . People expect me to know everything about money all the time and I'm like .

Speaker 2 33:39

I didn't go to school for money . I went to school for for being a lawyer , arguing and being good at telling facts in a different way , not nothing to do with counting . My boss , even to this day , will be like have me do something with money and I'll be like God . Did they not teach you about money in school ? And I'm like no , I had a calculator , like you want me to do this by hand . Like I had a calculator . So yeah , yeah , Awesome .

Speaker 1 34:04

Well , thank you so much for coming on here and sharing your story and showing the reality of a journey that we go through , because it's important , like I said , to share our stories from our community and so that way we could get rid of that stigma of like thinking that we should all be like , you know , financial gurus or money professionals , or that we got all our shit together , when no life , life is different , life is going to throw you . I knew some people that had it all all good and then they go through something too and like they go back down and then they have to pick themselves back up and everything . So , um , thank you for sharing your journey , of course .

Speaker 2 34:51

Thank you so much for having me . I really appreciate it .

Speaker 1 34:54

Awesome . Well , that's it for this episode and I will see y'all in the next one . Bye .