29 - Wendy Larson and Financial Planning 12/02/24

Here's what to expect on the podcast:

• Knowing your current and future numbers is essential!

• What steps should parents take regarding financial planning, especially when they have neurodivergent kids?

• The habit of saving acts as a financial safety net for unexpected events or emergencies.

• Why is it important for parents to educate themselves about different life insurance options?

• And much more!

About Wendy:

Wendy Larson is a mother to four young-ish children. She is a former college instructor and now helps families with financial planning as a financial coach.

Connect with Wendy Larson!

InstagrAm: https://www.instagram.com/meet.the.larson.s/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@meet.the.larson.s

Please listen to Episode 22 about Legal Planning with Amanda Andrasko: https://apple.co/3OqFDei

Connect with Samantha Foote!

Website: www.boisemusictherapycompany.com

Email: [email protected]

Consultation: https://letsmeet.io/boisemusictherapycompany/30-mi…

TRANSCRIPTION

This podcast is for parents like you, navigating the world of neurodiversity with love and compassion. I'm a neurodivergent mother of three amazing neurodivergent children and a board certified music therapist. Our mission is to create a supportive space where you feel understood, connected, and inspired.

With practical tips, strategies, and resources, we'll help you and your child thrive in your unique way. Join us as we dive deep into the diverse world of neurodivergent individuals exploring topics like ADHD, autism, dyslexia, sensory processing challenges, and more. We'll cover it all to empower, educate, and uplift both neurodivergent individuals and those who walk alongside them.

Together we'll create a world where every brain is valued and celebrated. We're excited to embark on this enlightening journey with you. We are your hosts, Samantha Fuh and Lauren Ross, and this is the Every Brain is Different podcast.

Welcome to the Every Brain is Different podcast. We're here with Wendy Larson and Wendy is a mother to four youngish children, a former college instructor turned financial coach. So Wendy, we are so excited to have you on the show. Thank you for coming. Thank you. I'm really excited to be here. Awesome. So can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and how you're involved in the neurodivergent community?

Yeah, for sure. So, first of all, when you said four youngest children, I never know what to say, cause I'm not in the phase where my kids are babies and like need me for all the things, but they're still, my oldest is 13 and my youngest is eight and, and so, and then, you know, the two in the middle. And so I feel like that's, I don't know, like they have lots of needs still, but they're just not like.

I'm not changing diapers anymore. So, um, but yeah, I, um, I've been a working mom for all of those 13 years with very few little pockets of exceptions where I was in transition. And, um, I don't know. I feel like I'm, I've gotten pretty good at balancing or trying to balance the work family dynamic. I don't know.

I guess it's still a work in progress, but, um, yeah, I switched into finance. I've kind of pivoted about four years ago into finance. And one of the things which I was excited to be invited to speak to your, you and your people, because. I run in not intentionally, but there's just so many families with neurodivergence in their realms.

And I just, I run into that frequently with clients that I work with. And it, it is kind of a different conversation about financial needs and financial circumstances that you have to look at differently than if it were. Not a factor. 

Yeah, for sure. Um, can you tell us a little more about your journey, how you got to where you are today?

And then we'll get into the really good stuff about what you have to share. 

Well, I just, my journey is I just, I feel like I'm one of those people that's always trying to improve myself and my circumstances and Um, I, I went to college, I graduated with a master's degree in second language teaching, which was not something that I saw myself doing initially, but I taught English to international college students and just really loved, well, one, just the diversity with people, right?

Like just in general and, um, but I, I was feeling five to six years ago, like, is this it? Like, yeah. Is this all I meant to do? And so I, I just, I even still feel like I'm constantly like, how can I be the best provide the most value to people that I work with, to people that I don't work with, to people, just people in general, how can I be the best version of me?

And so kind of like a never ending, I don't know, Samantha, I feel like maybe you kind of relate to that, that you're like always like, you're like, you're grateful, but you're always like. I, I can do more. I want to do more. I meant to do more. Absolutely. Right? You get that, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. That, that's me.

My husband is like, slow your roll. You're fine. You're doing fine. And it's like today, someone told me today, they were like, you are very impressive. And I was like, I am a failure at life and she was like, uh, okay. That's not true, but anyway, 

if you don't, if you're not even trying, then you're not failing.

Right. Cause that's part of the successes that, Oh, that didn't work. What's next? Different way. Okay. That didn't work until eventually something works at least some of the time. 

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So, um, let's talk about some finance stuff. What are some strategies that you can share with our audience about what you do?

Okay. 

So, so one of the, and I'm obviously given this a little bit of thought. So this, but these are the, the couple of ideas that I have for everybody listening is really things that I've actually seen in real life, right? So these are not hypothetical. Like this is, this is reality. And one of the first things I feel like is parents, all parents, but let, you know, specifically.

When there's, when there's kids with neurodivergent issues, the importance of having a trust and or a will in place cannot be underestimated. Right. And real briefly. So my, so one of the things with my I do have financial licenses. I am not, I don't do, I'm not an attorney. I don't know anything legal, right.

But I do have resources for parents that I use a lot that gets parents into the right circumstances. Cause my view is if I'm, if I'm helping families. figure out financial strategies to save money, to invest money, right? Looking at really all that I do is how do we best prepare for the future? If you aren't protected from a legal standpoint, all of that could be lost, right?

Savings, um, I'm talking about retirement assets or just regular savings, right? So I'm like figuring out what it takes. And this is not, I feel like parents with And not even just parents, but just people with neurodivergent. Neck neurodivergence in their life, their life can be overwhelming already. And sometimes I feel like the last thing that anybody wants to do is turn around and figure out how to get a trust set up and take so much brain power.

Right. But that's all the more reason why you have to do it because if something happens to you tomorrow and you haven't set up your family, the problem is way worse than you, you know, siphoning off. A couple of days or even a couple of weeks to figure it out. So, um, there is a difference between a trust and a will, and I won't, I don't really want to go into that right now, but I, the point is, um, you got to figure out what is right for you in your circumstance, right?

So a lot of times that's, I mean, Trusts are more involved with money and covering financial assets. Wills are regarding who takes care of minor. Children. And I mean, they both have a place and some people need both. Some people need one or the other. It's just really to have that conversation. Um, and I have resources that, that can help people get that for it's not as expensive or as complicated, I think, as people fear that it is.

So if somebody is listening and hasn't done that. You have like, that's number one. 

Yeah, for sure. And we had Amanda Androsco on the show and she talked about trust and will. So if you're interested in that, definitely go back and listen to her episode for anyone that's listening and is interested because she is an attorney and she can help you.

Yes. 

Yes. But yeah, that's, that's a great point. Like definitely have that in place first and then go from there. 

Yeah. Yeah, that's a huge foundational piece so yeah, um, another thing that I, I see a lot is, and this is something that I can speak more into because I have state and federal licenses for this.

So, um, is, I, I see. So let me tell you a quick story. Um, this was a couple of years ago, middle of the day going through my, my day. And I get a phone call from a client. She'd been a client for, she and her husband had been clients for about two years and she just, she was just kind of frantic and I actually don't remember if I could answer then, or I just caught a voice message from her and she's like.

We're working out things for, for, with a trust for my son. Her son was at the time he was probably 14 or 15, starting to come into an age where he could look at working and making money. Right. And she just had this big question about somebody on the phone that she was working with was like, if he has any life insurance assets, it will be counted against him.

And that's a huge deal with state. Um, Services, right? If, if you have, if you own too much and I think it's not very much, it's like two or 3000, I've, I've seen both in different states. 

Yeah. It depends what state you're in. Cause there's some people, uh, I can't remember what state it's in, but they're trying to, maybe it's a federal law that's going into effect.

They're like lobbying for a federal law to increase it because people with disabilities can't. Get a savings. They can't have any financial security or all their Their, um, government help goes away. Is there any rainy day funds? No rainy day fund. None of that. 

And it's, oh, go ahead. Say, I think Idaho it's 2000.

That's what, that's what I thought that she was saying is, is so that the question, her question to me was. Tell me that we don't have savings on his life insurance. And, and this is, I, this can be a hot topic. The difference between a life insurance policy that carries a savings account versus a level term policy.

I teach my people that the only thing there's very, very, very few exceptions where they would want a life insurance policy that carries any. savings component. I teach up and down day and night that people need term life insurance. And so I knew that this client did not have savings for her son. I knew that.

Um, and, but she needed me to confirm for the person she was talking to that it was only a term. It was only protection if he passed away and that it did not carry any. Any savings weight assets. Right. And, um, I think that's, there's again, like people see very differently on that as I don't want, you know, I'm not going to make people mad and start a big discussion, but that is a big, that's a big reason to know, I think the key point is to know what kind of life insurance you have and what your kids have, children don't typically need life insurance other than.

It's like a burial, like it's just kind of a, there's some other reasons, but so, so it was, she was very like, she's like, I thought that's what we had. Because I knew that that's what we thought was best, but I just, from the state side, they needed to confirm that he did not own any assets. So it's frustrating because it's so black and white and, and, um, I have a couple of people have been, I work with a lot of people.

I have a pocket of people in North Dakota. And same thing, I'm working with several that the state. The state, um, is looking at their assets and it just, it's, it's frustrating, but, um, life insurance, you don't want money in the life insurance policy for that reason, if nothing else. 

Yeah. Yeah. That so frustrating that.

They can't have financial security, but that is a good point. I, when I started looking into life insurance, I had no idea that there were different types. There were different, just different everything. And so you definitely want to talk to someone who's educated and all that to make the right decision because I was like, Oh yeah, I'm fine with my husband's life insurance through his work.

And we started looking at it and there's all these, if this happens, if this happens, if this happens, if this happens, you get nothing. And so, or, you know, like you have to just meet these right criteria. You have to die in such a way. Yeah. And I'm like, whoa, I thought it was just, if you died anyway, you know, well, 

there are some policies that are pure protection.

They will cover no matter what. That's why I, I think just something for parents to look at. Is, um, to just to know what's in it and to get a second opinion. And that's not something you want to leave to chance. Um, even outside of just, if a, if a miner has assets in a life insurance policy, that's not something you want to leave up in the air.

For sure. And then put it in a trust so that, you know, you know, so I don't know, Amanda went into more depth of why you want to trust and stuff, but just reminding people you don't want to just. Give it to them. Yes. And 

that, yeah, you're, everybody should go back and listen to that episode for those specifics.

But it is true that, see, that's why the life insurance alone or savings alone, or any kind of at month, you know, monetary asset alone is good. But if you go away too soon and you haven't set it up the right way, it creates so many problems. Without you and you yeah, you can fix that by just taking care of some things now, even though you're busy 

for sure I love it.

Thanks Is there anything else that you wanted 

to talk about? Yeah, there is something else that I thought is helpful for for parents and One of the things that I see a lot is people don't know what their numbers are. Yeah. When I mean their numbers, I mean, I'm partly talking about budgeting and I, so when I say this to, because this is something that I talk to my clients a lot about is to know your numbers and there's some personality types that hate budgeting and they're just, honestly, their brain's not meant to like.

Nowhere, every dollar's going. And so I'm not telling people that they have to keep track of every dollar if they're like, if they hate that, right. That's like. That's okay. But periodically, I think every parent should know what's coming in. What's going out. We all have what I like to call mystery money where we're blowing money somewhere.

And if we're ignorant, we might be blowing a lot of money that we like some, so sometimes taking an evaluation of how much am I spending? I'm taking my kid to this appointment once a week. And I feel like we always stop at the store on the way home, for example. If you like it's helpful to know I'm just because I'm going to this appointment doesn't mean I always have to stop it, get a frosty at Wendy's, or it's just awareness right.

And with that, so budgeting like the day to day is a big part that I see people. It's helpful to know. Um, not that I would ever, there's, it's very rare that I tell somebody you're buying way too much Starbucks. You got to stop that. But just, I don't have to tell people that if they look in and see how much they spent it.

On a soda at Maverick or coffee at Starbucks or something. Then all of a sudden they're like, Oh, that could have gone somewhere else. Right. Um, the other thing with knowing your numbers is really actually knowing future numbers. I think that all, not just parent, I think everybody should know kind of what they're not kind of, they need to know what their savings goal is to be able to not work one day.

That's different for everybody, but I feel like in right now in, so I'm in Idaho and in the United States and in Idaho, I see a lot of people are just not thinking for far enough into the future to know that if they want to quit working one day. They probably have to be saving or investing about 500 to a thousand dollars a month to hit the goal.

Now it varies, right? But I, I think if we were more in tune with just the knowledge and not that, not that every in Idaho, a lot of people, most people cannot say, Oh, I have an extra 500. I'm just going to put that into my investment, my 401k or my Roth IRA. Most people that that's a problem also. But to know that at some point in their life, they need to figure out where the money's going so that it's not just being spent frivolously.

Parents. Especially parents, if they're, if they're doing a lot of appointments, a lot of their kids need a lot of extra attention there, we're always running the rat race, right? We're always in survival mode at some point we have to evaluate. I can't always stay in this and get like financial success. I'm not even talking about like wealthy.

I'm talking about being able to have. a little bit of flexibility room to breathe. So that's another thing. I think just know the numbers, look at what it takes, what you're saving school. There's a lot of resources, calculators online, um, to be able to just have an idea. So. 

Yeah. And, um, someone told me once that if you can't save as much as you need to save, like right now, at least save something.

So you get in the habit. Of saving something. Yes. And then, you know, I started off saving, I think it was like 25 a month that I sent to my financial person and now it's, it's increased since that, but I got in the habit of like, okay, every month I'm going to put 25 in and then I increased it and then I increased it, you know, so just get in the habit of even if it's just 20, 25, 50 a month, like.

Get in the habit of at least doing that. 

That that's what I tell people to all the time, because the minimum that I can put monthly into an investment account, see a lot of people think, Oh, I need, I can't start investing, um, until I'm like, I have like a hundred thousand dollars. That's not true. Yeah. I tell people the same thing.

You got, if you don't have 25, then we got to do like, there's some other things going on. We got to find 25 if we're starting there. You're right. Most people need more than 25, but if we can start there, Hey, we get some momentum going, right? Like that's, that's when I love seeing people in all situations.

We're just starting. Here we go. Like, let's just, let's get this moving. And, um, Momentum is huge. People get really excited when they start to. They don't look at their account and all of a sudden they have a couple hundred, a couple thousand. That's fun. 

Yeah. Yeah. I can attest to that. I was like, Oh, I do have money, but yes.

So that, yeah, that just, it's just a feeling of security knowing that you're saving for retirement and. All of that, because it's going to come someday, like someday you will not be able to work. So, well, thank you. Um, I was going to tell you, looking over, you know, the, um, going back to knowing your numbers, I was watching this TikTok video and this girl was like, so my husband came to me and was like, how much money do you think you spend on SWIG every month?

You know, like the, the soda shops. And she's like, Oh, like a hundred dollars. And he was like, You spend our car payment and so I am not trying to shame anyone like if anyone, if anyone does that, I'm not shaming you. I'm just saying and illustrating the point that you made like she had no idea. How much money she was spending on soda every month.

And so, if you're okay with spending that money, that's totally fine. But if you're like, oh, I need some extra cash and I don't know where I'm gonna find it, that's a really good way to know where you can find it. It's just look at what you're spending. I know. I looked at what I was spending. I have a Costco addiction.

And so I was like, Oh my word, that, that is way too much money to spend at Costco per month. Like, even if it's just like, you know, they have, they have necessities there. Like, but do I really need all the clothes? Do I really need all the big. Costco sized, everything, like probably not. So yeah, that just going back to what you were saying about that, like it surprises you if you're not keeping track of it and then you're like, Oh, okay.

And see, that's, that's where I say what everybody has. Everybody has something like that. What we see is that if you, you blow about 1 percent of your annual income every month. So if you make 50, 000 a year, you're probably blowing 500. It's proportionate. So if you're making a hundred thousand, there's probably a thousand dollars.

And it's not that when I say you're blowing it, it's not that you're always buying. Swig or whatever it's that you're buying things that you weren't planning on buying. 

Yeah. 

Sometimes that's just, Oh, I have four kids and I'm going to buy school pictures and each picture packet is 17. And I never even liked the pictures.

Well, let, well, you know what? 17 times four was that not a, not an expense that I was planning on, but it's gone. Right. 

Yeah. 

It's so that's the mystery money and that's the power of just looking at it. You don't have to track it every day. Some people will and want to, and that's fine. I'm actually not one of those people, even though I'm in finance, I do not like the, the like nitty gritty like dollars.

Um, I like to look at big pictures. And so that's why I say, you know, you look at what you think you're spending or like you line up what your bills are and kind of like what you'd call like a budget. And then you print out your bank statements, all of them. If you have multiple credit cards, you print out all of that and you highlight what's in your budget and what was not in your budget.

And you see real quickly, you know, you highlighted everything in green that was planned spending and pink. What was not real quick. You're going to be like, Oh, look, there's my retirement. 

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think it's nice, I was gonna say, I think it's nice, a lot of banks now, like, they have, when you like go to check your accounts, they have like those breakdowns of percentage, like a percentage of this was at the grocery store, percentage was fast food, like I like that they can do that for those who Struggle with like, 

yeah, 

the deep, well, at least you have an awareness of kind of like an overall situation.

Um, and so I think that's nice that a lot of banks do that now. 

Yeah, you could get like QuickBooks or something like that. Like I have QuickBooks for my business, so I just use it for personal use too. And just categorize everything and then you look at it, you're like, dang, I spent a lot of money in that category.

But yeah, so there's our tools. Um, if people wanted to work with you, like how would they go about that? 

So what we start every client with our potential, you know, somebody that's just curious about what we do is we'll run a financial needs analysis on people where we look at, it takes a little bit of, um, we give people some homework and say, find me these things I'm talking about.

Um, 401k statements, IRAs, like current savings, debt, uh, that's a big thing is we'll have people collect all of their debt statements, no judgment, right? Like, like some people I've seen, I've seen, you know, I've seen no debt and I've seen a lot of debt. And the point is, is that We have solutions. We can put it together into our program, our calculator and figure out an overall strategy.

So, um, that's complimentary. It's just, it's a good way to get people some ideas about where they're at. And I give people an honest opinion. Like if there's nothing I can do, if they're already doing all the things I'll let people know. Um, if there's some tweaks, I'll let people know. And, um, yeah, cool. So 

I went to, I went to the summit.

And I won a financial makeover, like, meeting with this person. And so I went to meet with them and I was like, sweet, I'm going to get my life in order. I'm going to get my money in order. Like, I'm going to get a plan. She was like, well, you just need to make more money. You just need to make more money because you're already living.

You're not living like very luxuriously. So it's going to really start affecting your quality of life. If you don't spend as much money as you're making, as if you don't spend as much money as you're spending right now. And I was like, I feel like that's not what you're supposed to say, but maybe I was like, how do you want me to make more money?

Like I'm already working. My husband's working, you know? So, um, please tell me you have other strategies other than just telling people that they need to make more money. 

Yeah, of course, they're that one of my favorite ways is to look at how I feel like I've learned this over the last four years is that I can look at a budget and again, like, I don't, I'm, my job is not to be the boss and be like, You horrible person for spending so much on whatever your habit is or whatever.

Right. But you, there are things that I can look at really quickly and be like, I feel like that's too much. We need to call your cell phone or your auto, like that, that's not normal. Um, because looking at how to free up money in a budget is really the beginning. And sometimes that comes with, again, like we've talked a lot about the awareness of.

Oh, I'm going to spend less at that, whatever shop Costco target, wherever it is. Right. 

Yeah. 

But sometimes it is just seeing like a professional looking at a budget and just being able, I've seen a lot and to be able to look at what maybe doesn't look right. Versus what's just habits, like behaviors. So, yeah, we have other strategies than that.

Cool. That is good to know. I was like, I watch away from that. And I was like. I don't know what to do. So I was like, I think that was free. Yeah. Yeah. It was free. So, and then she's like, do you want to join my program? I was like, no, no, I don't. So yeah. Anyway, I obviously was not her ideal client and that is okay.

Um, but I just thought that was funny. So. Where can people find you online? 

So my favorite places I have, I'm on Tik TOK and Instagram as meet the Larson's. It's, um, I kind of put a whole bunch of things, some, some money. Some family, some just whatever. And, um, I have a lot of fun sharing things on those in Instagram and TikTok.

Awesome. Yeah. I've seen your videos and stuff and they're, they're really fun. So you definitely have a variety, which is awesome. So our last question for you is what do you do for fun? 

Oh. And I have to answer, right? Like, I can't just say I just take care of my kids. No, 

you have 

to 

answer. 

We all need something fun.

Okay. Well, really, my, like, Something that I just absolutely love doing is taking my family on road trips. And I think I'm kind of good at like, I think of all the parenting things, I figured out road trips, I'm figuring out everything. But, um, our favorite place to go is Yellowstone. We go every summer and, um, we do a lot of hiking, a lot of hanging out.

Finding rivers to wade through, picnics, all that. And, and so I wish I got outdoors more when we're not in Yellowstone, but Yellowstone is kind of a passion and, um, we look forward to all year. 

That's awesome. I love Yellowstone. It freaks me out though with bears. So I've never actually gone hiking in Yellowstone.

But someday when my kids are older, maybe we'll go, 

you take bear spray, which also scares me because bear spray in and of itself feels like, like, I don't want the kids to have bear spray. Yeah. 

Yeah. Yeah. We went to Yellowstone a few years ago. My husband's like, yeah, we're going to come back and we're gonna go hiking and we're going to do this.

We're going to do this. And I'm like, bears, there are bears. And I'm like a really outdoorsy person. So anyway, 

so we hike. In very populated areas, not in the backwoods. And we did just this summer. We saw a bear we were driving and I was so glad it was this cute little cuddly bear came out of the woods.

And I was like. It's mama is somewhere. I'm just glad we found that thing in the car and not on the rails. So yeah, it's, it's a real fear, but so far we've been safe and we're not the backwoods hikers. We're just, we stay where there's lots of people in sight. 

Oh, good. Good. Cool. Cool. Okay. Well, thank you for spending your time with us and coming on the show.

We really appreciate it. Thank you. It 

was great to be with you guys. Thank you for listening to this episode. We hope the discussion on neurodiversity has provided you with support, understanding, and inspiration. If you found our podcast valuable, please share it with others who may benefit from our insights.

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