11. A Way to Budget Without the Guilt with Maureen Paley, MSW, AFC®

Taylor (00:00)
Hello everyone, welcome back to the Social Work to Wealth podcast. I'm Taylor and here with my co-host Faith. I feel like at this point, everyone knows who we are. Is it really necessary for me to continue to introduce myself? I don't know, we're just...
Faith (00:10)
You
Taylor (00:16)
in it here. But today we're gonna be talking about budgeting. I am super excited. I've got a lot of messages about this being a topic that people want to hear about and so we have a financial coach with us, a social worker, I love that combination, Maureen. Maureen if you could just share with us who you are, what you do, all those good things.
Maureen Paley (00:44)
Hi Taylor, hi Faith,
I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me. My name is Maureen Paley.
with having received the gender conditioning that comes with being assigned this female sex at birth. I am also a social worker. I have an MSW from Portland State University and in my very interesting and varied career experiences, I also worked in financial services and investment management for seven years. I have this, I've been able to blend this interesting mix of financial knowledge and my
empathy and desire to care for people one-on-one and in groups and build community as a social worker and financial coach. So here I am. Thanks for having me.
Taylor (01:39)
Yeah, that is so cool to just those two worlds blending together. I think it's just a really, really nice pairing. I think we should just, we should get into it. So in terms of budgeting, why do you think people struggle with budgeting? Like what have you seen?
Faith (01:51)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Maureen Paley (02:01)
Well, I think
the first thing that comes to mind is it takes work. It's not automatic. You need to work at it. And as we know, we could list all the things in our lives that we know we should do, but we're probably not doing. is in that category for a lot of people.
Faith (02:06)
Mmm.
Taylor (02:19)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Faith (02:20)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Yeah, what do you think are maybe some of the biggest misconceptions people have about budgeting?
Maureen Paley (02:27)
I think budgeting is so often associated with restriction. And I know, like, I still associate budgeting with restriction. I still have to remind myself about my budget. You know, I can stand on my soap box and fly my budgeting is an opportunity. It's not restriction flag, you know. But I still have to, like, dismantle the thinking that we have around budgeting being restriction.
Faith (02:33)
Right.
Right.
Maureen Paley (02:54)
One thing that I've shared in the financial classes that I've taught over the years and also on my podcast is, and I'm very, I don't like making this connection to dieting, especially when it comes to women and all the gendered associations with dieting. you know, it's like the D word, like nobody wants to go on a diet. Like, ⁓ you mean I have to actually like restrict myself? you know, like, you know, people don't,
Faith (03:10)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Taylor (03:18)
Interesting.
Interesting. Yeah. Yeah.
Maureen Paley (03:24)
People aren't like, ooh, diet, yes, let me go on a diet. So one of the things I also like to share when I talk about budgeting is, I mean, normally when I bring up the word budgeting, most people are like, ⁓ God, like, and for those of you who can't see me, I'm like pushing something away from myself, right? Like, ⁓ we face it with this aversion, but what if instead of doing that, like,
Faith (03:27)
Hehehehe. Hmm.
Taylor (03:43)
Hehehehehe
Faith (03:46)
right.
Maureen Paley (03:50)
moving away from it, we leaned into it and said, ooh, budgeting. Look what I get to do with my money. I love flipping things on their head like that, especially like very conditioned things like this association we have, this negative association we have with budgeting and flipping the script on it to be like, what if it's not like that at all?
Taylor (03:55)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Paley (04:17)
you know,
what if it's actually me in the driver's seat and I get to make my own decisions about where my money goes?
Taylor (04:23)
Mm-hmm. Do you find that people are receptive to that? You know, just reframe and... Yeah. Yeah.
Faith (04:23)
Hmm.
Maureen Paley (04:30)
I do, think it, you
know, depending on who the person is and like what kind of stage they're in, in regards to their money, their financial autonomy, so on and so forth. Sometimes it can be like people like ding ding ding, like you can see the light bulb go off and they're like, ⁓ my God, you know? And sometimes people are just kind of like, yeah, like I'm not, I'm still not feeling it. And I think a lot of it comes down to our own individual money stories and our relationships with money. Cause we all,
Faith (04:40)
Yeah.
Taylor (04:47)
Yeah.
Faith (04:48)
Hmm.
Taylor (04:53)
Yeah.
Maureen Paley (04:59)
You know, it's easy for me. Someone who grew up in a middle class, socioeconomic class, right? And in truth, you know, I never missed a meal. I didn't experience the financial insecurities that other folks might experience. So it might be really easy for me to say these things about, hey, just change your mindset about it, right? And someone else hearing it might be like, yeah, I'm not on board with that. And that's totally fair.
Taylor (05:17)
Yeah.
Totally, yeah.
Faith (05:23)
Right.
Taylor (05:28)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Faith (05:30)
Yeah, and
I think what I hear you saying is it is a mindset shift, like to see it not as something that is...
you know, restrictive or kind of limiting, also, but seeing it as a tool to get freedom out of maybe your current situation. And then, you know, what would be some of your thoughts about, and we've talked to a couple other people on the podcast about this shame that can show up with money and with budgeting and you know, you kind of alluded to it as well, like the way your relationship with money.
Maureen Paley (05:48)
Mm-hmm.
Sure.
Faith (06:06)
as you grow, like as you're growing up can really inform how you approach money as an adult. So what are some things you've seen and what are some tips that you have for kind of moving past those feelings of shame or kind of know, like shifting your self perspective on, I can't, I can't, I don't know.
Maureen Paley (06:12)
Mm-hmm.
Faith (06:33)
I can't do this or I can't sit with these feelings or this is really shameful. Have you seen that in your work and what are some suggestions you might have?
Maureen Paley (06:35)
Right.
Mm-hmm.
Absolutely,
I mean I think...
If you're looking for reasons to feel bad about money, there's plenty.
So shame is an incredibly uncomfortable sensation. Everyone experiences it, some of us more so than others. There are real tools we can use to
experience shame and not let it take us over. So I think, you know, a lot of that work can be done. I mean, that's inner work, right? That's that's an inside job. And a lot of that can be done with psychotherapists and clinicians like you both are. mean, I'm sure you both have have worked with individuals in the throes of their shame for any number of reasons. So what I try to do with people is that when they feel that
normalize it, you know, like also let them know, hey, I've talked with hundreds of clients and they all feel it too. You know, like this is a very understandable and common experience. And I think when we see our experiences as common amongst others, we don't feel so alone in them. And then if we can find that shred of like that little glimmer of something
that gives us like a foothold in the shame, it's not this big wave that's gonna crash into you. You know, it's like, wait, wait, I have my feet under me right now and I can, yes, the shame is here, but I can keep moving forward and make this happen. I mean, shame, and also like I remind people that shame isn't a prerequisite for change. In order to change, you don't have to go through the depths of feeling shame about something.
Faith (08:30)
Mm.
Maureen Paley (08:30)
But I mean, that's something that I learned as a younger person. It was like, you really have to feel bad about this. Like if you need to change something about yourself. I actually, the older I get, I'm like, I don't think that's really true. I don't think we have to. Now the feelings might come up outside of our will, let's say, but I have a choice in how I react to the feeling coming up. And do I let it wash over me? And maybe for a time I do.
Taylor (08:36)
Mm-hmm.
Faith (08:36)
Mm-hmm.
Taylor (08:39)
No.
Faith (08:40)
Mm-hmm.
Taylor (08:57)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Paley (08:58)
But over time, I can start building this toolkit of getting myself out of the shame.
Taylor (09:03)
Yeah, I love, I mean, I don't love hearing you talk about that, because I know that people, I love hearing you talk about people feeling shame. Yeah, but I think it just highlights the, I think, benefit of working with a financial coach when, I mean, this isn't what this conversation is about, working with a financial coach, but I think, you know.
Maureen Paley (09:07)
Yeah, right. Everybody's favorite topic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Faith (09:08)
We went real deep, real fast in the beginning. I'm like, tell me about the shame. Yeah.
Maureen Paley (09:23)
Mm-hmm.
Taylor (09:30)
you're able to provide that space for people to actually let's unpack that a little bit, you know, it you might have some feelings around your budget and your money and the things you did or didn't do with it. And so I think.
Maureen Paley (09:35)
Mm-hmm.
Totally.
Taylor (09:45)
I think we underestimate working with a financial coach. As social workers, we know how important it is to go and seek help for your mental health and all of these other things, but I think we also need to remember that it's okay for us to reach out for help about our money. And there are people like you who can offer a safe space.
Maureen Paley (09:54)
Mm-hmm.
Taylor (10:06)
for people to just be vulnerable and share and kind of get over these negative feelings that they've had with Bunny and start moving forward in whatever way that they want to. So thank you for doing that work and providing that space for people.
Maureen Paley (10:13)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Taylor (10:25)
I'm curious, what is it that you've seen people, like when they come to you and they're like, I've tried budgeting, it doesn't work. What do you think is like their struggle or, you know, the mistakes that they've been making in their own budget journey? And I also realize that...
Maureen Paley (10:38)
Mm-hmm.
Taylor (10:45)
Everyone has their own way of doing it, you know? I don't want to say that there's a way of doing it wrong because we all... It's so unique, right? Personal finance is personal and so the way that I do it may be different from the way that you do it, but that doesn't mean I'm doing it wrong. So I just want to put that out there. I realize that maybe there aren't mistakes, but maybe they just haven't found a way that works for them.
Maureen Paley (10:48)
Mmm.
love that you say that because I've often had people ask me like, well, what's the best budgeting app or what's the best budgeting tool? And I look at them and I say, it's the one that you will use, period. Because there's so much thinking about budgeting. It's funny, because we're dedicating a whole episode to talking about budgeting. I think if I was going to give anybody a main message about budgeting, don't overthink it, just do it. Even though we're going to talk for like 45 minutes about it.
Taylor (11:14)
Right.
Yeah.
Faith (11:19)
Yes, yes.
Mmm.
Maureen Paley (11:37)
Yeah, it's like you get to choose the one that works for you at the end of the day and you might have to try several. And in different seasons of your life, different types of budgeting tools or methods might be more helpful for you. So keep that in mind. You know, it's not just a one and done, I'm going to use this method for the rest of my life. Any big life change is going to be a financial change. Graduating from school.
Taylor (11:46)
Mm-hmm.
Faith (11:46)
Hmm.
Taylor (11:53)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Maureen Paley (12:07)
buying a house, marrying a partner, getting divorced from a partner, so on and so forth. So you're going to have different financial seasons and needs along the way and your budgeting needs might be different. keeping that in mind, ⁓ yeah, I think budgeting at its essence is really a few things. It's tracking, planning, executing and executing meaning acting. So it's like,
Taylor (12:30)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Maureen Paley (12:35)
I need to track where the money's going to really understand where my habits are currently, right? And then I need to plan, and this is where the choice comes into play. I get to plan and choose where the money goes, like getting back into the driver's seat. There's so many in our, American capitalism and consumerism, there are so many systems that want to automate money leaving our checking account, right?
Taylor (13:00)
Yes.
Maureen Paley (13:01)
Now
Faith (13:01)
you
Maureen Paley (13:01)
literal systems that will automate it, so paying the Netflix charge every month, right? You you might totally value Netflix and that's totally fine. And I think sometimes we can fall into like this autopilot on our financial behaviors where we just don't realize how much we're spending on, you know, the evening out. Like I, with my boyfriend, it's like, I'm...
Faith (13:23)
Hmm.
Maureen Paley (13:29)
crunching the numbers in my head about how much an evening out to go to dinner is, and then like go to the movies on top of it. my goodness, like we're looking at close to a hundred dollars, right? And so it's like, I start looking at the reality of do I want my money to all go into that today? You know, that's where I get to choose like, okay, I can pull back on some things. And then once you choose where you want the money to go and how you want to change those behaviors,
then you have to execute, you actually have to do it. And that's where money coaches come into play and people who can hold you accountable for doing that. The cool thing about being held accountable, that's another dirty word that we don't like, is that you have, I mean, research shows that we're more likely to achieve our goals when we have accountability for them. When we have someone to tell, hey, I did this, or even, hey, I didn't do this.
Taylor (14:14)
You
Faith (14:15)
Mm-hmm.
Taylor (14:23)
Mm, fascinating. I didn't know that.
Faith (14:26)
Hmm.
Taylor (14:27)
Yeah. Yeah.
Maureen Paley (14:29)
So we need someone on the other side of things, just there to report to. And then also the cool thing about accountability is you're much more likely to track your progress. And when you track your progress, you actually see the outcomes and hopefully they're positive outcomes, right? And that can be like a wind at your back to be like, my God, I saved 150 bucks this month. my God.
Faith (14:36)
Mm-hmm.
Taylor (14:48)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Faith (14:57)
Mm-hmm.
Taylor (14:58)
Yeah.
Maureen Paley (14:58)
I wasn't
able to do that two months ago. I was a hot mess. It can be like this wind at your back that that propels you forward and then you can get really excited and then the excitement shows up and when excitement shows up, there's, there's, that's a natural force. That's really important. Yeah.
Taylor (15:01)
Yeah.
Faith (15:02)
Mm-hmm.
Taylor (15:11)
Yeah.
Faith (15:11)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Taylor (15:16)
It propels you. Mm-hmm. Yeah,
yeah, definitely. I'm curious, you know, when you're creating, when you're helping someone create a budget, I like to kind of get into the weeds about that. How, what does that look like?
Maureen Paley (15:33)
So it looks like a few things. We have income and we have expenses. that's really, budgeting is all about organizing our cash flow. And I like to say that cash flow is like one story, one financial story. The other financial story is wealth building. So like today, in this budgeting conversation, we're talking about the cash flow money story. So we have income coming in.
Faith (15:44)
Hmm.
Taylor (15:57)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Paley (16:00)
money coming to us and then we have expenses which is money moving away from us and we're just in this ebb and flow of that month after month week after week right so um what i try to i mean tracking all the sources of income and then tracking all the all the sources of expenses is super important now i am not a believer in you have to get down to the penny but i am a believer in you got to get like 95 there
Because in shining a number, mean, shining a spotlight on those numbers is a really, you know, that's where the shame comes up. Big scary spotlight, you're gonna see all my ugly, you know, wounds and scars and flaws and things like that. And I actually think that that process of shining the big spotlight is really necessary, even though it is painful, right? But we have the choice for how we work with that discomfort.
Taylor (16:28)
Mmm.
Faith (16:29)
Right.
Exactly, right.
Taylor (16:36)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Paley (16:58)
So you've got to look at all the income, you've got to look at all the expenses. usually what I find is that folks are actually surprised. Once they start looking at the numbers of the expenses, they're like, my God, I did not know I was paying that much. my God.
Faith (16:58)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Taylor (17:14)
Interesting. How far
do you have them look back?
Faith (17:18)
Mm.
Maureen Paley (17:19)
⁓ I think for typical purposes, just like the past month or so, like December is always a strange month. You know what mean? The holidays, people spend very strangely in months like that. But I would say like you can pick any past month and you can look at what your typical expenses are.
Taylor (17:27)
Yes.
Faith (17:29)
Right.
Taylor (17:30)
Yes.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, okay, so Have a couple of months Categorize the expenses maybe we're looking at income. We're looking at expenses and then they come to you. ⁓ my gosh, I can't believe I've been spending this
Faith (17:40)
Hmm.
Maureen Paley (17:46)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
the process where you find you have extra charges coming out here that you forgot about. That's where people wrap their head around, my, yeah I have that $130 gym membership and I haven't been in the last six months. And sometimes, this might sound cruel, but I don't do it to be cruel, but I'm like...
Taylor (17:59)
Mm-hmm.
Faith (18:02)
Yeah.
Taylor (18:12)
Yeah.
Maureen Paley (18:21)
let's break down the cost per visit of your gym membership. Like if you're going once a month maybe and you're paying a hundred dollars a month that one visit is a hundred dollars.
Faith (18:25)
you
Taylor (18:27)
Hmm.
Faith (18:35)
100. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Taylor (18:35)
Yeah. Yeah.
Maureen Paley (18:36)
Right? So it's like, are you okay
with that? Sometimes when you look at the numbers, I mean, that's personally what works for me. I specifically, I go to Planet Fitness because it's $10 a month. And I know that I have like the wiggle room of not feeling terrible if I don't go to the gym, but it's there as a utility if I need it. You know what I mean? So that's for me. Some people are like, I want to go to a really nice gym. I want to feel really good about it. Great.
Taylor (18:39)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Paley (19:04)
But it's within that process of tracking the expenses and getting organized is where you really see, my God, I'm spending that much money on Amazon deliveries? Like, what? You know, so it's enlightening.
Taylor (19:10)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah.
Faith (19:18)
you
Taylor (19:22)
Yeah, and it's a helpful realization when those things happen because I think for me it's been like, I actually don't really care that much about that thing. I actually don't want to spend my money on that, you know? So I think it helps us also to be more intentional about what we're spending our money on. And I think that's essentially how we can improve just our financial.
Faith (19:22)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah.
Taylor (19:50)
wellness overall is just being intentional about what we're spending it on because that's what brings value to our life.
Faith (19:55)
Yeah.
Maureen Paley (19:58)
Mm-hmm.
Faith (20:00)
Yeah, and I think it's also,
if you can see it as like a reassessment of your needs changing, like that might have been at one time in your life, going to the gym was really important to you, but then you've lived a year or two and you're like, why am I still paying for that? That's not a need or priority for me anymore. Or maybe there's something I can be doing.
Maureen Paley (20:07)
Yeah.
Taylor (20:15)
Mm-hmm.
Faith (20:20)
a cheaper gym I could go to or you reevaluate your priorities and needs by looking at your finances and where they're going. yeah, like goals change all the time, life changes all the time and budgets they're dynamic and they change with us. that's, yeah, and also I like how you said it's about tracking first, like understand the problem, then assess, yeah.
Taylor (20:33)
Totally.
Maureen Paley (20:34)
Mm-hmm.
Exactly.
Yeah, it's a diagnosis.
Taylor (20:45)
Assessment. Do an assessment.
We all understand that language. Do an assessment of your money.
Faith (20:48)
Understand, yes, assess the problem of your money and do a little treatment plan on yourself.
Maureen Paley (20:50)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
That's right.
Faith (20:59)
Like, okay, now I'm gonna plan and do a little treatment planning and then I'm gonna try to execute my goals. Done, there we go.
Maureen Paley (20:59)
Yep. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah. And then you run the experiment and you might run the experiment and you might be like, this is working. You might run the experiment and be like, this isn't working. Or I'm not getting the results from the experiment that I want. And then you readjust, you you recalibrate the experiment to see what you can do.
Faith (21:07)
and then you run the experiment.
Taylor (21:09)
Yeah.
Faith (21:14)
Ooh.
Taylor (21:16)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Faith (21:23)
be
addressed.
Taylor (21:26)
Yeah.
Maureen Paley (21:27)
I think it's also important to break down this idea that budgeting is something that people who are good with money do, and it just happens, and it works every time, and it's static, and it doesn't change. Not true. Our relationship with money is like any other relationship. We have to engage with it. We have to work with it. We have to give it time and attention.
Taylor (21:49)
We have to give it time and attention. I think that's
huge. I feel like sometimes people want, know, like you said, not to be cruel, but I think sometimes people want it to just happen to them. And, you know, maybe I can watch a TikTok video or two and understand it, but we have to put a lot more time into this. I think then sometimes people realize and...
Maureen Paley (21:58)
Mm-hmm.
Totally.
Taylor (22:16)
You know, I understand that sometimes people don't have the time to and that's life. I get it, but yeah, if you want it to change, you have to learn and put some time into it.
Faith (22:17)
Yeah.
Maureen Paley (22:21)
Yeah.
Faith (22:31)
Yeah,
it's like any other change that we want, right? Any other change you want, it's going to be uncomfortable in the beginning. But in the long term, it's going to produce real sustainable change. Instead of like avoidance or getting momentary relief, those things don't fix the problem long term.
Taylor (22:33)
Right.
Maureen Paley (22:34)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Taylor (22:50)
someone, so someone, know, Etsy has a lot of cute budget sheets on there. Yeah, I have one on my shop too. But say someone goes on there, they're like, I really like this budget sheet. I'm gonna fill it out. I'm gonna do my own thing. And now what? It's like, how do you, how?
Faith (22:51)
Hmm, yeah.
Maureen Paley (22:58)
I bet they do. Yeah. Awesome.
Mm-hmm.
Taylor (23:14)
do you recommend and how have you seen people be successful with, you know, maintaining the budget? I think that's also it. know, I think sometimes it can be kind of easy to just put your numbers in a spreadsheet, be like, okay, there's my budget, but like, how do you maintain it?
Maureen Paley (23:23)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, you're gonna
Faith (23:34)
Yeah.
Maureen Paley (23:35)
need to, know, any way that you can measure your progress, I think is gonna help. And measuring it periodically is also gonna help. So you might want to, I'm a big believer in like money dates, like, or have a business meeting with yourself or have a business meeting with your partner.
Taylor (23:54)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Paley (23:54)
try not to take it overly seriously, try to have fun with it. And I say money date because if money is a relationship that you have, it's a really important relationship in your life. And I mean, single people, you're on a money date with you and your money. You're not on a date with anybody else. But it's really about taking intentional time to engage with the numbers. And I think when you engage, like, okay, so you've
Taylor (24:05)
Yep.
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Paley (24:24)
you've done the planning part of the budget and now you need to execute. So it's like, I have to take the plan and start changing my decisions and my habits most likely to get to the goal I want to get to. And then like, I would say maybe the next part of the step after you execute is review. You've got to build in some time to review. Like, okay, so what was my goal? I wanted to have
Taylor (24:29)
Right.
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Paley (24:54)
$200 go into my save. I wanted to have $200 left in my checking account that I could sweep into my savings at the end of this month. Did I get there? Well, maybe at the end of the month, you got to like 175. Okay, you you got really close, right? That's amazing. So I think you need some time to review how it's going and track the progress. So there's that track at the beginning.
Taylor (25:02)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Paley (25:23)
of the budgeting process is about tracking what's happening now. But you need to track it at the end to see the outcomes, to see the progress. It's like, I am making progress, or I'm not making progress. And then maybe that gym membership that you were hesitant about getting rid of a couple months ago when you built the budget, maybe in a couple months when you're doing the review, you're like, I want to save more money this month. I'm getting rid of the gym membership. I'm going to...
Taylor (25:35)
Yeah.
Maureen Paley (25:50)
I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to take walks outside. I'm going to get together with friends. You know what mean? So when you track the progress, more solutions are going to come your way.
Faith (26:03)
Yeah, I like that.
How would you recommend, you know, I don't know, Taylor, if you have more questions specifically about like budgeting, budgeting, but I'm curious about debt and how social workers can maybe.
go about balancing or paying off their debt while also saving like kind of like I want to pay off my debt. I want to save and I don't I don't know Taylor and I have talked about this too. Like there's the really hard approach where you eat rice and beans and you like don't enjoy anything in your life and you're like these are my goals and you're like really intense about it. And Taylor and I have often talked about can there still be like joy in this process? Can we have a little bit of joy also? Well,
Maureen Paley (26:32)
Sure. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Taylor (26:35)
You
Yeah.
Faith (26:45)
meeting financial goals. I guess my question is, do you have recommendations on how to pay off debt while also still having a little bit of joy in your life? You know, is that possible?
Taylor (26:59)
Hehehehehe
Maureen Paley (26:59)
my God. Well, like, yes. And like, first of
all, let's prioritize our joy. Like, let's just, let's just agree. I mean, as humans, as social work professionals, let's prioritize joy because as, as we probably know individually, and we've seen classmates and coworkers, if you're not feeling joy, man, you're going to burn out. And burnout is no joke.
Faith (27:07)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Taylor (27:07)
Ooh, I love that. That's number one. love, Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Maureen Paley (27:27)
So I would
Taylor (27:28)
Yeah, yeah.
Maureen Paley (27:29)
say please prioritize your joy. And this is, yeah.
Taylor (27:31)
Yeah, that's super important just for us as
Faith (27:35)
So important.
Taylor (27:35)
social workers, just in general. Like you're talking about burnout. Our work is so hard. We go through a lot. And so that joy piece, think, is something that we can, it's a gift to ourselves, you know?
Maureen Paley (27:38)
Yeah.
Faith (27:40)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Maureen Paley (27:49)
It is.
you know, it's sure we do hard work and you know, we're probably working at, you know, state institutions, county institutions and nonprofits where we're not making tons of money.
In regards to like paying off debt, mean, I have student loans. It's funny because I paid off my first round from undergrad and my first master's when I was in my early 20s. And now, you know, at 39 or 38, I went back for an MSW and now I have a whole new round of student loans. So most of us have student loan debt and most of us have credit card debt or what name it, a car loan or what have you. And then we want to save, right? We want to build wealth for the future.
Taylor (28:25)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Paley (28:31)
And a lot of people, like you intimated Faith, it's like, what do I do first? Like, do I do this? Do I do that? I say do both. You can run at both of these things. Now, again, think about seasons of your life, right? Like, let's say you have like $3,000 left on your credit card debt. That's at 28.99%. And you're like, well, I want to pay this down.
Faith (28:39)
Yeah.
Taylor (28:43)
Yeah.
Maureen Paley (29:00)
but I really want to contribute more to my 401k at work or my 403b or whatever. So maybe for the next few months, you go all out on that credit card debt. And then when that debt's gone, then you amp up your retirement contribution, right? So it's like still make the contribution to your retirement while you're paying off the debt, but maybe it's only $200 that's going into your retirement, or maybe it's only like 50 bucks.
What we want to make sure, I don't think we have to do a lot of all or nothings when it comes to just pay off the debt or save and invest for the future. I think we need to do both at the same, I think we need to do both at the same time personally. That's what I try to focus on. But I also look at this opportunistically. Like, okay, so I've got like $3,000 left on this credit card debt.
Faith (29:40)
Right, right.
Maureen Paley (29:58)
when you track what's coming in and coming out, you might be like, man, if I don't go on that girls trip or if I don't, you know, do that thing that was going to cost seven, $800 next month, I could really squash this really fast and think about future you and how future you would walk around feeling.
Faith (30:22)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Paley (30:26)
that $3,000 of credit card debt, which was costing you 28.9%, it's gone. Like, how would it feel walking around as that person? That is something personally I've been practicing lately about my own financial goals. And I I love this feeling. like, cause I want to be debt free. And I've got some that, know, I'm car loans, student loan, credit card debt. And so it's like, hell, I'm a financial coach. Like, what do mean, Maureen? You got all this debt. We, you know, too.
Taylor (30:32)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Faith (30:32)
Hmm.
Taylor (30:46)
Yeah.
Faith (30:50)
Mm-hmm.
Hahaha!
Maureen Paley (30:56)
To live a lifestyle in the United States, you're going to have debt. And debt isn't necessarily bad. It's when it balloons and it becomes overwhelming that getting out from under it gets increasingly harder. So we want to be in a position where we're using it skillfully rather than kind of like it's an avalanche on top of us and we can't get out. But I would say do both. And remember that you can look at things opportunistically. Like maybe for the next nine months, you're going to put more
Taylor (31:00)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Maureen Paley (31:25)
you've got a thousand extra dollars a month, for the next nine months you're going to put 800 a month on your student loans to really reduce them and only 200 into your savings. And then once that nine months is through, then you shift it, you reallocate. So you don't have to do one type of strategy forever. So I would say that's where the reviewing and the rehashing and the recalibrating come in.
Taylor (31:44)
Yeah, right.
Faith (31:51)
One thing that I really liked that you said, Maureen, was about empathizing. Well, I guess the way I'm phrasing it is like empathizing with your future self and kind of thinking about what do I want my future self to feel like and how do I imagine that and what do I want? I know that was a big thing that I remember trying, even with like other areas of my life, but specifically with finances, thinking about like, what do I want to feel like? What do I want?
Maureen Paley (32:00)
Yep.
Faith (32:21)
my life to be like, and when you can remove that weight of debt or see your savings grow, it does put a wind at your back and it does help you actually feel like, okay, this is working. Like, this is actually worth that discomfort. And I think we can still have joy, like Taylor and I were talking about, like in that process can still have joy in the sense of
Maureen Paley (32:22)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Faith (32:50)
You can still go out for meals with your friends. You could still maybe go on a trip here or there, but maybe kind of thinking about what future joy do I want too, and how does my pie chart of joy going to shift a little bit so that I can have, maybe I'll have a little bit less joy now, but in the future I'm going to have relief. I'm going to have financial freedom, and that's what I want to invest my time in.
Maureen Paley (32:54)
Yes.
Yep.
Taylor (33:18)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Paley (33:18)
Absolutely. mean, so for me, like in regards to the debts that I currently want to pay down and what I'm working on, you know, when I track my income and expenses, what my expenses tell me is that my expenses are mainly eating out and like buying food that I enjoy, like groceries that I enjoy, quality groceries and
Faith (33:20)
Yeah.
Maureen Paley (33:48)
socializing with friends. Now, I don't even go out to eat all that much. that like, that's the thing, like I'm not ordering takeout or I don't really do that. Like I bring my lunch to to my day job. Like I try to really curb that. However, especially since my experience going through COVID and then, you know, going from an in-person life to a more remote life at home, working from home has been, my gosh, I want to go out so much more because that's where I get.
my social bucket gets filled up, right? And what do you do when you go out? You go out to eat, you go out for coffee, you go out for this, that, right? So when I look at those expenses, and those expenses are still very much there, I give myself permission and I say, ⁓ hell yeah, you're spending money on your joy, right? And you're spending money on filling up your bucket and that helps my mental health, that helps my wellbeing, so on and so forth. I get to connect with the people that I care about.
Faith (34:22)
Yeah.
Taylor (34:35)
Yes.
Maureen Paley (34:46)
And I will say that over this, I'd say past nine months when I really started getting a bit more serious about paying down these debts, there's been some things that my social groups have invited me to that I've said no thank you to. Because I knew that it was gonna be like maybe a day long, we were gonna go drive for about an hour and a half and go do a bunch of activities and I knew it was gonna be like an $80 a day.
Taylor (34:59)
Hmm.
Faith (34:59)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Paley (35:13)
And I just said to myself, like, I do want this social outlet, but I can't do an $80 day right now. doesn't, it doesn't, you know, there's something wasn't settled inside me, but you know, maybe the next time we went out and we did a different activity, was like, ⁓ yeah, I want to go do that. This time I'm going to go for it. So you will have to say no to things. And none of us like to say no to things. However, it's going to be okay, you know, and really tapping into how you're going to feel that future you is going to feel.
Faith (35:23)
you
Taylor (35:29)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Right.
Yeah.
Maureen Paley (35:44)
That can be really powerful, a powerful motivator for a lot of people.
Taylor (35:47)
Thanks, Maureen. I love this. Super helpful. Let's talk about our money moment. What do you have for us?
Faith (35:49)
Yeah, me too. I know.
Maureen Paley (35:50)
Oh me too! I wish we could talk forever.
Okay.
So I actually have two money moments. think the first money moment that I'll share, I mean, we kind of talked about both of these in essence in this conversation, but I would say this is when I worked in financial services. So this is before I worked in social work. I spent seven years working for investment managers in New York in the Bay Area.
I, at about like year five or six in the industry, I was making the most money I've ever made. single, running a studio apartment and you know, the things that I was spending my money on primarily was going, you know, on trips with friends and doing things like I did distance running for a while. And so like we would go sign up for a marathon or a half marathon and you know, New Mexico or whatever, and we'd go there and which was awesome.
And I was also just in like a kind of like an autopilot set of behaviors with ordering from Amazon and now that like I think about it I'm like, I don't know what the heck I was ordering over and over again, but And there was it wasn't like a one moment per se but I think it was just a growing awareness of where my money was going and I really wasn't following a
budget at all. It was just like, I have plenty of money. I'll use it. I'll travel. I'll do whatever I want. So this is kind of a message for folks who are making good money and don't have a budget for themselves. I would encourage you to try budgeting. Remember, it's all about planning and tapping into how you want your money to go out into the world. So I had this growing awareness over like several months that like, don't know if I need to really do this anymore. And then I looked at the things.
that were kind of a thorn in my side, one of which were my student loans, and the other was my car payment. And I was just, kind of like had this, I don't know if it was a moment or just a growing awareness, I was like, you know what, what if I didn't direct all my money to the trips and the Amazon orders and whatever else I was spending my money on, what if I directed it to getting rid of that car loan and like actually owning my car?
Taylor (38:15)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Paley (38:16)
and getting rid of my student loans and being completely free of them. That became intoxicating. And so I really, I changed a lot of behaviors in a pretty serious and significant way. And eventually I was totally debt free and I was just thrilled. So I think that really taught me like, ⁓ I am in the driver's seat on this.
Faith (38:16)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Taylor (38:24)
Hmm
Faith (38:24)
Mm-hmm.
Taylor (38:34)
Wow.
Faith (38:34)
Hmm.
Taylor (38:41)
Yeah.
Maureen Paley (38:41)
Like that helped me see the autopilot behaviors I was doing and the not really thinking about it and just kind of, you know, yeah, not having a plan or anything like that. Now, since then, like there's been periods of my life where I've reverted to the, I'm not really thinking about it, not really working too hard on things as well. So it's like, but for that certain amount of time, I was really motivated. And then when I started seeing the progress and those numbers, those balances go down towards zero, I was like.
Taylor (38:45)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Paley (39:09)
yes, like I can totally do this. Yeah, it just felt so much more within reach. The other money moment I will share. So that was about, that first money moment was about 10 plus years ago, maybe 10, 11, 12. And then the other money moment was, so I left finance, working in financial services and I got into social services and it, as you can probably guess, my income changed dramatically. And here's the thing like,
Taylor (39:09)
It feels so good. Yeah. Yeah.
Faith (39:10)
Mm-hmm.
Taylor (39:34)
⁓ wow.
Maureen Paley (39:37)
I genuinely felt called to start working with people in a way that I never had before. my time in social work has been so beneficial. And my income did change. one of the money moments I had was when I working at a few agencies for about four years. And then I went into grad school. And then I eventually finished grad school. And then you get out of grad school and you're like,
I think for me, I was so pent up with energy that I just wanted to get out there and make money again and go after it. That when I started to, I had a few realizations for how I was managing my money in the previous years. And one of the things that I will share and admit is that I was in my nonprofit social work employment, I was contributing to my retirement, but it was in a cash investment.
So essentially it was like, it was a savings account. And I took a, at that time every year I was taking a solo camping trip up to the North coast of California and kind of just hanging out with Redwoods for a few days. And it was on that trip that I like, you know, you go on a road trip, maybe like for me, it was by myself. So I had like this epiphany. was like, my God, like I haven't, that money is not invested. And I lost out on four years.
Faith (40:41)
you
Maureen Paley (41:07)
of investment power and compound returns because it was invested in a cash product route. But I consciously made the decision to invest it in cash. I was very much in a place where I was like, investing only drives these systems that are unfair and problematic. you know, like, I don't want to be part of it. And here's the thing, like, do I regret that decision? Well, I regret missing out on the time.
Taylor (41:07)
own.
⁓ I see.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Understandable.
Faith (41:26)
Hmm.
Right.
Maureen Paley (41:36)
That's the thing, you can't get the time back. But internally within myself, that decision was in alignment with where I was. So on some level, I really need to honor it. But when I had the, it was like a light switch. I was like, Maureen, cause I think I connected it with like, are you really taking care of yourself and your money? That part of it dawned on me. And then I like, I went home and immediately got it invested instead of sitting in cash. So,
Taylor (41:36)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Faith (41:44)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Maureen Paley (42:06)
So yeah, those are my money moments that I have to share.
Faith (42:12)
That's great. Thank you. This was so good. Thank you for all your tips and just opening up also at the end about just that, like, I think that's even another little tip, like investing your retirement, not having it in a savings account, but it's been really great just talking to you and hearing what you have to share with everybody. Yeah.
Taylor (42:13)
Thank you.
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Paley (42:27)
yeah.
Taylor (42:32)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Paley (42:33)
Thank you. Thanks for having me on.
Taylor (42:34)
Where can people find you? Like, what offerings do you have for coaching? Like, share all of those things, yeah.
Faith (42:37)
Yeah.
Maureen Paley (42:40)
⁓ I would love to share that.
So I'm a life career and financial coach. So in the life coaching aspect, if you're working on personal goals and you'd like some support and accountability, oftentimes I'm doing life coaching with women business owners. that, you know, I happen to be one myself and that's my favorite coaching clients to work with. So if you're thinking of starting a business or you have one already and you want to take it to the next level, I love working with women in that capacity.
Another thing is career coaching. So I've spent years writing resumes and cover letters and coaching people through job applications and negotiations. And I love doing that. when you, that's one of my gifts. And I love working with women, especially because we need someone else to mirror to us how awesome we are. And I can be that for you. And I love being that for people.
Taylor (43:15)
Mmm, cool.
Yeah. Yep.
Maureen Paley (43:33)
And
then there's the financial aspects. So I help women with budgeting, of course, but also with debt elimination and building wealth. So the strategy is that you need to get out of debt. And when you get out of debt, you increase your net worth. But we also want to make sure that we're building on top of that net worth with our wealth building and our investments and savings. And if you're looking for me, you can find me at my website at Maureen-Paley.com.
You can also find me, I'm active on Instagram at MaureenPaleyCoach, and you can always find me on LinkedIn too.
Taylor (44:07)
Awesome. And, and your podcast.
Faith (44:07)
Yes!
Maureen Paley (44:08)
wait, wait, I forgot to talk about my podcast that Taylor was on. Yeah, and
Faith (44:13)
Get your
puck!
Maureen Paley (44:14)
I'm also the host of a podcast called Financial Autonomy for Women, the personal finance podcast. Taylor was a guest recently. So it's great. What I do is I interview women, financial practitioners and other types of experts and tie it all back to.
how we can engage with our money in positive and successful ways. So check it out on all major podcast platforms.
Faith (44:39)
Thank you.
Taylor (44:39)
Love it. Thank you so much, Maureen. Thanks everyone
for listening. Thanks for the work that you do, Maureen and Faith, and just our listeners, our social workers. You're doing good work. We see you. You're crushing it. Keep going. And we'll be back in two weeks.
Maureen Paley (44:43)
Thank you.
and thank you too.