In this inspiring episode, Jon Emery, host of the Life's Check Mark podcast sits down with Severine Bryan, an Accredited Financial Counselor with over 25 years of experience. Severine shares her journey from a financial setback to finding peace of mind. She helps busy women restart their financial journey, understand their financial goals, and achieve financial peace.
Key Takeaways:
1️⃣ Give Yourself Grace: We all make financial mistakes, and it's essential to forgive yourself and move forward.
2️⃣ There's Always Hope: Regardless of your financial situation, there's always a way to rebuild and achieve your financial goals.
3️⃣ Find an Accountability Partner: Having someone who holds you accountable can help you make better financial decisions.
4️⃣ Mindset Matters: Shifting your mindset and making intentional choices is crucial for financial success.
Don't miss this insightful episode of the Life's Check Mark Podcast shared on the Dr. Sev Talks Money podcast. Listen now and start your journey toward financial transformation.
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On every episode of the Dr. Sev Talks Money podcast, Dr. Sev and her guests explore the essentials of personal finance, the psychology behind financial decisions, life and business strategies, family dynamics related to money, and more. Discover actionable strategies to boost your confidence and improve your financial well-being through the inspiring success and recovery stories shared by Dr. Sev and her guests.
As part of her direct client services, Dr. Sev helps busy women take command of their basic personal finances so they can reach their financial goals and gain peace of mind.
Dr. Sev encourages people to take control of their finances with a practical plan that’s tailored to their specific needs so they can reach their own financial goals.
Here is one way you can support the podcast and YouTube channel: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/DrSevTalksMoney
Another way is by purchasing our Journal and Budget Tracker: https://a.co/d/eHSutSl
Website: https://www.sevtalksmoney.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/DrSeverineBryan–SevTalksMoney
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/severinebryan/
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Transcript
Jon
Severine, I’m really glad that you’ve made it onto this podcast, just want to share a little bit of background, we connected through another podcast, Facebook group, and I was delighted to have a phone conversation with your resume, you know, and we were able to just talk about podcasting life. And you know, basically what you’re doing. And you’re we’ve talked a little bit about your journey, but I asked you to come along, and you can share your journey with others and, you know, dive into like, what you’re doing and how you’re helping others as well. So if you wouldn’t mind just introducing yourself and just share what you are doing, then we can go backtrack.
Dr. Sev
Well, what am I not doing, it’s probably easier to start, okay. But I am happy to be here on the podcast Hello to everyone. Again, my name is Severine Bryan, and I am an accredited financial counselor. And what I do is I serve women, busy women, I should say, who are needing to restart their financial journey. And I help them to understand or to set their financial goals and help them reach their goals. Because the final attainment is really peace of mind. Not so much the money, but the peace of mind. So that’s where how I work with my clients. And I also have a podcast, I’ve been teaching personal finance for over 20 something years, and just recently started my actual business, in the podcasting in the personal finance world.
Jon
And so what, what got you interested in is the financing, you know, from way back 20 years ago, you know, something had to trigger you to jump into this.
Dr. Sev
Wow, I’ve always been a geek. And I’ve always done really well with numbers of my, actually, my calculus teacher told me that I needed to become an actuary, I had no idea what that was, I eventually became an accountant. But I’ve always had an affinity for numbers and making, you know, $10 into 15, or 20. Just, it’s just been a natural knack. And I was going to this church, and they asked me to become the stewardship director. And so I started researching and see what all of that entailed. And I realize, I love this thing. I love educating people about money, I love giving people the information for them to understand the power they have, once they realize that they have control over their money, even if they don’t have a lot of it. But they have control over it. And there are things that they can do to get better control, no matter what’s going on in the economy, there are things that you can do to go forward with your finances and make, you know, $1 into five, maybe these days, maybe it’s $1.02 or three, but they have the power to do that. So I’ve always had that. And then my, my dad put me on his account when I was 16 years old. And he said, You are the most mature of my kids. I don’t know what that means, because I had a sister who taught me in high school. So I had sisters who were older than me. So that kind of put in my mind that I am capable. And I have the gift to do it. So with my teacher, my dad and everybody else thinking that I’m good with money. And then me starting to believe that. Um, I delve a little bit deeper and found that yes, this is my world.
Jon
Okay, so that got you rolling. So what how did it really work with you in the church? You just saw the books coming in and the money, you know, is that what you were really watching
Dr. Sev
out and I think I did some of that I worked in the finance office. But basically what I did is I taught different things. So I will do newsletters, I would hold classes, and I will teach about money, I use the the crown financial package, in our teach about money, I will teach my Debt, how to budget, I’ll teach about taxes, you know, all the things to watch for how you can manage your money so that for your paycheck, so that at the end of the year, you’re not getting a big refund, or you’re not paying a big amount, you know, ways you can look at how to manage that. So you’re not giving a big surprise. So I taught just about everything you can think of I taught those subjects in the church. And then I also brought in guests for those subjects that I wasn’t like investments. I brought in guests to educate the congregation about things like that.
Jon
Gotcha. So just out of curiosity, most people really don’t I don’t think most people take into the financial part unless they had problem first, did you experience a problem before you dive deep into finances and say, you know, this is how I can make things better for myself and then teach others.
Dr. Sev
Actually, I did, after all of the time, teaching personal finance, you know, it was, I was not intentional about my money, I was teaching personal finance, I wasn’t in debt, I wasn’t doing anything, you know, that would get me in trouble. I was just kind of coasting along in my financial life. And then I filed for divorce at 53. And because he took me to court to try to get more than what we were negotiating, I had to get a lawyer. So that cost me caused me to pay, you know, have to put something on my credit card. So now I have debt for credit card. And I also had to give them half of my 401k I walked away from my house because he refused to leave the house. And so walked away from the house, and rented a house from me and my daughter. So that messed up my credit. So all of those things. So now I had to apply the things I’ve been teaching all this time back to become much more intentional in applying those things. And after several years, I rebounded. So that’s why I know it works. And that’s why I’m so passionate about doing the small things, nothing big, don’t have to save a million dollars, you can start with five, you know, because I know, things work, the little steps work. So yes, that was my hiccup. And I look back and I’m thinking, I was upset at first because I’ve worked really hard to make sure my credit scores are okay. Make sure that I have one time payment have all of these things. And then here it is. I’m doing what I’m supposed to do. And this happened. But it happened for a reason. It happened so I could have empathy. For those who are going through things where five years ago, I probably would have said, How could you have made this much money in this job and you’re not saving anything? You know, that’s probably would have been my approach. But now I realize things happen. And so how can I use my story, use my education, because not only did I do that at church, and went through that and rebuild my finances, but I also went back to school and got my accredited financial counselor certification. Because I wanted to have the experience that I what I taught myself at the church, the experience that I have, plus the education and be able to help people or to serve in that capacity and give people hope to that there is a way to rebuild your finances.
Jon
Better. Yeah, there’s always a way right. So I’m just curious. How old was your your thing? You said your daughter?
Dr. Sev
Yeah, she was in high school? I’d have to do some math to remember what?
Jon
No, yeah. Yeah. So my question would be the she she saw the transition of you, you know, you wanted to divorce and everything and having to change your mindset with money and everything and build up to where you are today, wherever that is, right. So as a mother, are you able to tell a difference between her then and now and maybe she’s got the habits that you’re doing as well?
Dr. Sev
Well, my daughter is more of a more of a type A my daughter is more of a type z if they existed. Very, very bad. But one thing I will say she was because I tried to shield her from those things. I made sure she had what she needed. I did. I was at the school, I was room mom all the way through. I was very involved. And I still stayed involved until she graduated from high school. So in that aspect, it she wasn’t really negatively impacted. And I never said anything abo ut her dad, I always meet her cheap women saw him. So I made sure to try to take care of her emotionally and all the other things. But as she got older, maybe 1617 She started getting a job. So I talked to her and I say you want to split your money. Well, I’ve always told her that even as a child, very young should get birthday money. And I always said split it in three, give save and spend three, I would tell her, you know get take some gifts spend. So I’ve been hammering that for a while. And then she was probably I’m gonna say don’t be 21 years old. And she came to me and she said, Mom, you’re always talking about high yield savings account. I would like to open one. And that made my heart happy. So I showed her how to open called American Express at the time because I had several but I liked American Express. So I had her open an account there. So she’s been saving and when I did her taxes. Last year, she had gotten, I want to say 70 something dollars in interest. So she had been doing pretty well. In saving. So she’s, you know, I mean, she’s a she’s young. So every now and then Amazon, thinking, all those deliveries and I’m like, What are you doing? Are you still saving? Yeah. So you know, she told her, you know, have fun. But at the same time, you always want to look, look after your older cells, because you never know what will happen. So she’s kind of getting it. She’s kind of,
Jon
yeah, it’s, it’s tough. And I think that’s what has to happen sometimes. So you can teach your kids as much as you can and want to write, but they have to learn the lesson the hard way, sometimes. What would you say would be probably a good age to start teaching kids?
Dr. Sev
Wow, let’s already early as you can. There’s so many ways you can teach them. You go to the grocery store. And, you know, maybe they’re five steaks. And you say, okay, here is this rice. And here’s this rice. And here’s what you can compare, even though this one is $3. And this one is five. But if you do you see that sign, it says per ounce, that means this one, even though it’s more expensive, by the owns, or for each bite you take, it’s it’s cheaper, you know, things like that. So there are things we can do when they get birthday money, you can talk to them about Okay, so you want to say for I don’t know what kids say for these days, from a video game. And grandma gave you $20? How much is a video game video game? When they say oh, $250 Okay, so let’s, let’s see how we can start saving? How much more do you need? Just little conversations. It doesn’t have to be okay, it’s time to talk about money. You know, it’s just the everyday things that we do. How can we make those restaurants into things that they can learn about money, so they’re not faring money? They’re not thinking money is this thing, I have to set aside a time and stress and sweat about it? It’s part of life, and I can incorporate it into my everyday decision.
Jon
So I have two children. And I would consider one the saver one spender at the moment. So I mean, how can how can somebody not just kids, but how can somebody like break the cycle from spending, I guess, would be the worst thing all the time, right? To become a more of a saver.
Dr. Sev
Yeah. Okay, so I’m an excessive saver. But that’s not all good. Because there’s what we want balance, okay. And some of the things that I do, especially in my practice, is I do these lists these quizzes, I do this thing called Money habitudes. And I also do a test where you can determine what your your money type is, what type are you? And then what are the things that you can do to bring balance to that, because some people are excessive savers. Some are excessive spenders. And there are things that trigger that there may be an experience, where maybe for the spender, it’s something that they were told they really wanted. And they said, Oh, you can’t have that we don’t have the money for it. So now when they have the money, they’re like, Okay, no, I have my money, I’m gonna do what I want to do. Because you told me before, that you can’t afford it, or you, we don’t have money for that. So now they’re going overboard. And their times, even when you tell one person that they may say, Okay, I didn’t we never had money, we couldn’t buy the things. No, I’m going to hoard everything. So you never know how people will take their experiences, their money story, and how they will cause it to impact the way they behave. But you want to first of all, those tests are really, really good to kind of identify not to say you’re bad or good, because money is neutral. It’s not bad or good. It’s a tool. So we just want to identify how you behave around money, what is your money behavior, what is your story? And then what are the things that we can put in place to help you bring back come back to center, like if you’re if you are a someone who is an impulsive shopper? Well, maybe you don’t want to go to the grocery store, maybe you want to buy online and have them delivered, because that cuts back the temptation to do excessive shopping. Maybe you want to have an accountability partner, where if you like shopping online, getting a dress or whatever, you say, Hey, I’m getting ready to buy this dress. And then you can talk it out with your accountability partner, just different things you put in, you’re not changing your personality, but you’re putting things in place to help you come back to center of whatever that you know, extra thing is that you are whether you’re extra favor extra spender.
Jon
Yeah, you’re trying to prepare yourself, right? I like the accountability part as what we said, and most people would think with finances wouldn’t be reaching out to people because they’re ashamed of where they are. Because, you know, they put themselves in that spot, probably for the most part. So I mean, it, you know, for you, I guess, and for people you’ve helped along the way. When do you feel like these people reach out to you? I mean, is it like at the darkest of the moments, or, you know, the, maybe they reach a peak where they’re making more money or something like that, and they don’t know what to do with it? You know, I’m just curious, you know, when these people start reaching out for some kind of financial help
Dr. Sev
me, it runs the gamut. It could be somebody who just just got a job and decided, okay, I want to start off, right. So help me figure out how to spend my money, what are my what are the best ways to maybe even just got a job offer anyone to help to negotiate the job offer. So it runs the gamut of somebody who is now on the last rope and need to figure out some strategies versus, and it can be somebody who just wants just some pointers, they already are doing some things, but they just want to make sure they’re on the right path. So they’re just No, no one set or one type of person, I didn’t come to me. But what I would say to those who are listening, there is no reason to be ashamed of making financial mistakes. One of the reason I share my story is because I want people to understand that even if you know what to do, that doesn’t mean that you’re going to always do the right thing, quote, unquote, we all make mistakes, we all make financial mistakes, I don’t care who you are, I don’t hear from the President down to the person who cleans the toilet, we all make financial mistake. So there’s no reason for us to be ashamed. I’m trying to make my practice a non judgment zone. Because he who is without sin cast, the first stone, you know, is there’s no reason to be ashamed. So own up to the fact that you know what I made this mistake, or I did this thing that now is really my finances, catch it as quickly as you can, so that you can correct it. And don’t be concerned, try not to be concerned, I’ll say try not to be concerned, because we’re so influenced by the things we see our friends and all of that. Try not to be so concerned about what society says you should do at 30, you’re supposed to have the house and the 2.5 kids and the PC fans and all of that. But personal finance is personal for reason. Everybody, situation and story is going to be different. So if you’re listening, please don’t be ashamed, find somebody you trust and talk to them and get the help you need. And because again, we you’d be surprised how many people are in the same position that you think happy together? And don’t be afraid because you’re not alone?
Jon
Yeah, that’s, that’s a great point. I liked how you said about society by saying you should be here at this age and whatever. And that’s so true. Like everybody starts to think like, oh, wait, you haven’t how much debt? What the hell’s wrong with you? You know, at what age? You know, for what reason? It doesn’t matter. But people think like that, you know? So with that being said, you know, you had a somewhat of a mindset shift when you got went through a divorce? What what do you do to help your clients come, you know, when they come to you, what do you do as like, trying to help them with their mindset shift? Like looking at a different? Because it’s different, like it’s a totally different avenues and what they’re used to? So I mean, there’s got to be an automatic, there’s some kind of process you start with?
Dr. Sev
Yeah, I try to make sure, first of all, that they understand, you know, what their money story what’s what may be the influences that are making you make a choice versus another. But at the same time, what is your goal? We want to dig deep into what it is that you, you want to achieve? What is your goal? Because a lot of people will say, Oh, I just want to have a budget. But having a budget and not having the right mindset in terms of how you look at your money. A month or two later, you’re going to you’re going to abandon that that budget. So I try to make people understand or try to work with people to let them understand your underlying reason. Why is your reason for wanting to do this? Why do you want to fix your, your, your budget, why do you want to fix your money? And that is not to go on vacation? It’s all it shouldn’t be? Because then when the vacation is over what happens? It has to be something that’s deeper. So we want to figure out what your why is what’s driving knew. And then we want to figure out what are the strategies that we can put in place to ensure that you realize your why. Now we work on the what, and we work on the win and how to get you to your why. I mean, there’s no there’s no set process, they say everybody that comes in stark here, it all depends on what your goals are, and where you are in your planning process. And what it is that once we’ve identified your money story, so to speak, and the things that you might the support that you might need to achieve your goal, then we’ll work on that based on the goals that you’ve identified, and how you behave around money. In, you know, the guardrails that we can put in place for you to reach your goals. The way I handle my money is so different from my daughter’s, I’m very anal, I’m always balancing my account, I’m always making sure I know where every money is to the penny, my daughter is a different story. So I could not approach her without, if I’m going to, to, I’m going to work with her, then I’m going to have to, I can’t do the rigid rules like you know, budget, you gotta track your money, you got to, I have to find another way that is interesting to her, that I can work with her to get her engaged. So it has to be based on the personality based on you know, what your socialization is to money? What are your goals? And what are the things that drive you and, you know, all these things that you have to consider you’re, you’re almost like a counselor, you know, a mental health counselor, because you really have to dreamy to be successful. And to help your clients succeed. You really have to dig deep to see how can I help this call me. And I’ll just say this. If you think about lottery winners, you know, people just have more money, more money, and lottery winners, they get millions of dollars. And in a few years, I think the stat says in within five years, many of them are broke again. It’s not the money. It’s the mindset, it’s how I look at money. That’s what changed. That’s what needs to change. Because if you have $1 They’re They’re stories of people who are janitors, and all of that, and they made the lift so much money. Meanwhile, those of us who make six figures and seven figures, we die in debt. So it’s not the money. It’s really our mindset, how we look at that money. And that’s what I want to start with with my clients.
Jon
That was a good point there. I think they’re like you said the six figure seven figure people do you could say some of them still living paycheck to paycheck, because, you know, they’re, that’s just the way they have their money going. So they’re starting for more money. So they’re just keep on pumping out more and more time for the business. You know, that you mentioned how you write down everything in a bank account. So first thing that came to mind was like, you’re like one of the Rockefellers where I remember him, always writing down everything in his notebook way back then. But the late 1800s responded from right. So that I thought that was kind of fun. But, I mean, what you’re doing is good. I’m not saying that responding, but just keeping track. Yeah. Just a short story there. But um, no. So you know, how can somebody reach out to you and connect with you if they’re interested in just getting to have a chat with you learning more about what you do and your strategy for helping these people out?
Dr. Sev
Yeah, I do have a 15 minute free consultation on my website. And that is sales talks. money.com. This is Evie talks. money.com. And you can always book a 15 minute consultation and see, do I like her style or not? Based on our first conversation, and then we can go from there.
Jon
I think after somebody listening to this, I think they would probably like your style, your attitude. And you know, I mean, your personality doesn’t sound like you’re going to come on strong on anybody. With that being said, I mean, if somebody’s like falling short, you kind of pointed out to him, right? And saying like, you know, you got work in this area? Well,
Dr. Sev
I feel like every client is their own. They’re the architect of your own life. And my job is not to stand over them with a hammer. Because if I do that, and they’re gone from me, they’re no longer my client. Now that hammer is no longer there. What do they do they go back to what they were doing. So my job is to give you options discussed with you, okay, so you want to go on vacation at the end of the year because that’s something you do as a girl trip, you know, boyfriend, whatever you go hunting, whatever. Alright, so let’s look at your finances. Yours You say you want to buy a house in six months. So let’s look at your numbers. If you were to go on this trip, what are the costs? So we break that down? Now how will that impact you wanting to buy a house in six months? So we’re going to go through strategies. And I’m not going to say this is wrong or right, because it’s not my place, you have to live with your choices. But I’m going to give you the strategies. And I’m going to ask the question, so you can think and come up with your own answers. And sometimes you may choose to go on the trip. But then you have to remember, there are always opportunity costs with every every decision we make. So you know, my job is to do those kinds of things is to give you options, show you different roads that you can take, and then it’s up to you, based on the role you’re going to take, then let’s put a strategy in place for you to walk that road.
Jon
You said opportunity costs, I just struck a spark in my head, because I made a video about that years ago. And you know, it’s something you forget, you know, and it’s true, because basically what it is, is you’re walking away from something when you could have been making more money, or you’re investing in something that you know, whatever it is right, and you lose an opportunity, even time times that opportunity. Time. Yeah, that’s not just financial talk whatsoever. So I know you shared a lot about your journey and your financial story that you had and how you’re helping other clients. But what are the three key things you’ve learned and used on your journey?
Dr. Sev
Wow, one of the first things is always give yourself grace. Realize that you are only human. And we all make mistakes. So give yourself grace, forgive yourself, even if the mess up is because you make stubborn choices for give yourself give yourself grace. I think the other thing that I learned is that there’s always hope. There’s not you know, there’s always hope, when you start your journey, you might want to have a half a million when you’re 62. But because of something that happen, now you only have 300,000, or 200,000 When your substitute. But even if you didn’t meet the initial initial goal, you can still start where you can end up with a goal. So you know, forgive yourself, there’s always hope. And I think maybe the third one that I would want to say is always find your accountability person, somebody to give you accountability to keep you accountable. Whether you want to want it to be a professional or a friend, that’s going to give it to you straight, where if you are wanting to go on a vacation, your friend say Come on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Didn’t you tell me that you want to go back to school? And you’re saving money for you know, for that, that degree? What, okay, why are you trying to go on a trip to Paris now, I know what everybody else in your family is doing. But is it a good time for you pirates to always be there. So you know, somebody’s gonna hold your feet to the fire and really hold you accountable, you probably don’t want your, your personal finance person to be that hold your feet to the fire person. Because you know, we don’t want to come on heavy on you. But you want to find that person who’s going to tell you the truth about your finances and the choices that you’re making. So I don’t have three or three things that I think I would say because I had someone who, who was holding me accountable. And once I realized that there was hope, then I started rebuilding, because now I’m in a much better place. My credit score was in the five hundreds. Now it’s an eight hundreds, you know, if I had stayed there, and just I want to add a fourth one is mindset. You know, because if I could stand there and take me in, I worked so hard. I’ve been teaching people and this happened. And okay, stay there wallow for a little bit. But now, let’s fix the future. Let’s see change, change your mindset? How can we now take this and make a stepping stone of it to rebuild your future? So I would add mindset in there too. As one of the things to that I want people to consider this
Jon
great. Yeah, thank you appreciate their work. They were all great, you know, once that you learned along your journey. So the one thing I want to share, I just want to talk real quick. And then. So the accountability part, I’ve heard people like saying, you know, if I go say I go on this trip, I owe you 200 hours, because I want to guess what I was trying to say, you know, I mean? So I don’t know if that’s something that people actually do, but I’ve heard people say stuff like that to do it. So I mean, that can be something or they give it to like
Dr. Sev
yeah, you know, yeah. You have certain things if you do certain things, we’re going to give you points and at the end of the program or whatever how many points you have, because each point is going to equate to, you know, whatever you set and then you can get that reward for that for those points. So there’s just different ways you can motivate people. To for them to do the right thing, but you don’t want to do it too much because again, you don’t want them to do it because of that. Because when it’s gone, what are your choices? So you want to kind of reward but be careful about balancing that because you don’t want to be again the hammer because that’s like a hammer. It’s like, okay, if I saved my money, I’m gonna get this phone. So okay, you’ve gotten the phone. So are you going to still save put things in place to to build up the will the habits that you want them to develop? And even though you’re rewarding, what you really want to focus on the habits, getting those good habits.
Jon
That’s a great point, thank you. I appreciate it. It was great to have you on and I enjoyed you sharing your journey with our listeners.
Dr. Sev
Yeah, It’s my pleasure, I love talking about money.
Jon
I know, I can tell.
