Episode 13: The 3M Wealth Formula: How to Give Every Dollar a Job and Align Your Money With Your Values
What if the problem isn’t how much money you make, but what your money is doing once you earn it?
Money decisions don’t usually fall apart because of bad math. More often, they break down because life gets busy, habits take over, and financial choices lose connection to what actually matters. In a world built for convenience and constant consumption, managing money with intention has never been more important.
In this episode, Sherron Permashwar, CPA/PFS and founder of Modern Savvy CPA, introduces her 3M Wealth Formula to create sustainable financial clarity. She explains why financial progress requires more than budgeting tactics, how everyday choices quietly shape long-term outcomes, and what it really takes to create a financial life that feels aligned and sustainable.
Listen in as Sherron breaks down the mindset shifts, decision-making patterns, and practical strategies that can help you feel more in control of your money, more confident in your choices, and more connected to the life you’re building.
What You’ll Learn:
What the 3M Wealth Formula is designed to help you do.
Why financial success is about more than just numbers.
How unintentional spending quietly pulls you away from your goals.
The role mindset plays in your financial decision-making.
Why your financial “why” matters more than most people realize.
How to create better habits around spending, saving, and planning.
How entrepreneurs can use their numbers more strategically.
Ideas Worth Sharing:
“We do so much unintentionally. We really need to take money as a tool. And the thing about money is it is a tool if I give it a job, but if I don't give it a job, it's like a cartoon that it finds its own jobs.” - Sherron Permashwar
“It doesn't matter how much money you make… high earners without discipline and education still is poverty.” - Sherron Permashwar
“A lot of times people lie to themselves… With money, especially, they tell themselves that they're good at it. They tell themselves that they're bad at it. They tell themselves whatever story they want to tell themselves to make the excuse to not address it. But it's part of your life.” - Sherron Permashwar
Resources:
About Our Guest:
Sherron Permashwar, CPA/PFS, is the founder of The Modern Savvy CPA, who helps women, professionals, and entrepreneurs build wealth with clarity and confidence. With over 28 years of experience, she blends strategic tax planning, financial education, and mindset-based coaching to turn confusing money decisions into practical, actionable steps. Sherron is also the founder of BMP Tax & Accounting and The Prosperity Academy, a nonprofit dedicated to expanding financial literacy in underserved communities.
Connect with Us:
If you're ready to stop avoiding your finances and start building the future you deserve, schedule a free call with me at pelicanfinancialplanning.com and let’s create your personalized financial plan together.
And if you want ongoing guidance, clarity, and confidence as you grow your wealth, subscribe to our newsletter for financial insights delivered right to your inbox.
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Read the Transcript:
Sherron Permashwar: We do so much unintentionally. We really need to take money as a tool. And the thing about money is it is a tool if I give it a job, but if I don't give it a job, it's like a cartoon that it finds its own jobs.
Welcome to The Wealth Development Studio. I'm your host, Genevieve George, Senior Financial Advisor and Founder of Pelican Financial Planning & Wealth. Our goal for this episode is to provide clarity about today's financial topic, inspire you to be brave with your questions, and gain confidence in your financial future. So take a deep breath, grab your favorite cup of coffee, and step into the studio. Your dose of financial empowerment begins now.
Genevieve George: Today we're talking about a challenge every one of us faces: making financial decisions that actually align with what matters most in life. It's easy to get caught up in the numbers—how much to save, where to invest, how to minimize taxes. But without intention, all the strategy in the world can feel hollow.
How do you make sure that your financial decisions support your goals, your values, and the life you wanna build? To answer that question, I'm joined by Sherron Permashwar, founder of the Modern Savvy CPA, who helps individuals and entrepreneurs bring clarity and purpose to their financial choices through her 3M Wealth formula. Sherron’s approach shows that building wealth isn't just math; it's meaning.
Today, we'll break down the 3Ms, explore how intention transforms the financial decision making, and share actionable steps listeners can take to align their money with their life. Sherron, thank you so much for being here.
Sherron Permashwar: I am so excited to be here with you, Genevieve. We talked about a lot of things, you and I, in the past few conversations that we've had.
And I'm excited to talk about the 3M wealth formula and intentional money management and how the approach to finance is actually the key, not so much doing the mechanics.
Genevieve George: Great, great. I love that. So break it down for us. Let's start big picture. What are these three M's?
Sherron Permashwar: We'll go right into it, huh?
Genevieve George: Yeah!
Sherron Permashwar: So my approach came—I kind of knew what I wanted to teach and how I wanted to share. Share what I wanted to do. I didn't want to be just another financial person that teaches people how to budget or teach people how to just the basic.
the numbers and that's it. Cause we have a lot of that, right? And let's talk about like in society right now, we have AI. So there's a plethora of information out there. Actually, sometimes I think too much information that it's confusing to a lot of people, and finance itself has so many hiccups for people to be talking about it, right? So.
Genevieve George: Yeah, it's ripe with what I call analysis paralysis. There's so much information that we just don't do anything, which is not the right choice.
Sherron Permashwar: It is an overwhelming topic, and in the past three years, I always knew as a CPA, and now a CPA/PFS. PFS is kind of going into financial planning and understanding more of a holistic way of a person, not just being a normal tax person, a CPA. or an audit-preferred CPA.
Genevieve George: Now, for people that don't know what is PFS…
Sherron Permashwar: So the PFS is actually a part of this. You have to be a CPA to get the PFS extension. And what it is, it's more of a CPA that looks at a client holistically and helps them to plan financially for their future. So I like to pair with partners to do that. I like to be the quarterback of the client. So we will cover everything. The PFS area covers everything from insurance to legacy planning to children planning to all of those different things to real estate. So we cover every aspect of someone's financial life.
And in every aspect of someone's financial life is taxes. So tax touches every part of all of this. When you're talking about money, tax is always a part of it. So that's what makes original tax CPAs—so I'm an original tax CPA—a great person to venture into this section of the CPA world because it gives you that tax perspective that normal just wealth advisors don't have… They don't have that tax expert part, or they don't have as much of it as the CPA.
Genevieve George: Yeah. So you can look at the full financial picture and understand the tax components of how those pieces are working together.
Sherron Permashwar: Correct.
Genevieve George: And have that all come together. Where sometimes the disconnect is that it's happening and the CPA is not on the same page, right? So that's when you have a CPA/PFS or CPA/CFP, that's a really nice combination to go ahead and have like all the parts together. But if you don't, then you need to make sure your people are communicating with each other.
Sherron Permashwar: I think people, your financial wellness team, should always be communicating together. And I think that that part of our profession, that's one of our issues, right? Many wealth managers that I know that are CFPs are not communicating that much with the CPA. And I think we're doing our clients a disservice when we're not part of the team. We're not collaborating with their attorney, their state attorney, their wealth manager, whether she or he is a CFP or is a broker, or they're like a CPA like you, you're a wealth manager that's also a CPA.
So it doesn't matter any of the titles. It matters to me what are we doing for our client and how are we collaborating to look at their whole picture and I think a lot of that is missing. So with the finance profession in general, I think we need to work on that.
We need to work more on that so we can be our clients’ trusted advisor. And by us, you and I, when having the CPA, we are already ethically bound in certain ways. So clients tend to trust a CPA more than they would trust any other letters, if you want to call it, right?
Because we are ethically bound and having the extensions, whether it's a PFS or a CFP is additional of what we do, but we're still ethically bound. So a lot of times a client will trust us with their whole portfolio, but they're not afraid to let us look.
So a lot of times for me, I meet clients all the time that don't have all of their money with one wealth manager. So that wealth manager can't plan for them as well as they should and trust is a factor.
So they want to have that trusted advisor relationship.
Genevieve George: Right. And it's okay to have more than one financial advisor, but somebody, at least one of them, has to be looking, yeah, the quarterback, they have to be looking at the whole picture and understanding. Because what I always say is like, the more information I have, the better information I can give you. And even if I'm not managing all of that, and that's fine.
But if I have the information, I can at least better advise you and go back to that communication and better clarity for the client too, having a good relationship with their CPA to make sure there are no surprises too.
Sherron Permashwar: Right. So that's the other thing that I've noticed a lot when I was more concentrating on tax. I think I always was a personal financial planner. I can't just prepare a tax return. I always have to ask about different things: your will, your kids, your real estate. I can't help myself.
But when I was more concentrating on tax, there are so many times that the client is surprised at their tax bill at the end, and the client should never be surprised. If their team is working together, they should never be surprised at their tax bill. That’s something that can be planned.
Genevieve George: Yes. Yeah. And better communicated too, because on my end, if I send my client, “Here's all your 1099s and have fun, look, good luck with your tax return.” And they come back and they say, “Why did I owe so much taxes? My CPA told me it's from my accounts with you.” If that wasn't communicated, that's a problem. Right. I'm already very tax sensitive to how I work with my clients anyways, but there is so much with that communication, making sure that the clients understand what is happening with their own accounts.
And that's sort of that ownership of what's going on too. And we want to look at the whole picture, but we want them to understand the whole picture too.
Sherron Permashwar: So that's the key is that they should not be ever surprised at their tax bill, and if they are surprised, then what's happening on the wealth management side like I had one client last year. He's like 90 years old, and he had a million dollars of sales and probably $300,000 of capital gains.
So he's all $60,000 in additional tax when he's living on his regular in addition to… So we planned, we did estimated payments based on what we know and based on last year's, but that broker should have communicated to the client and say, “Hey, you’re gonna have this much of capital gains because we're doing this. And you might want to contact your tax advisor to make sure that you've paid in enough or you're not surprised at the end.”
A lot of clients, it's not even that they've paid in enough or whatever. They want to know. And if they know in their head, they're prepared. And the surprise is the problem. So if your broker, he has a broker, I'm not really sure if it's an advisor because I don't even think he understands what's happening in his portfolio.
So an advisor will make sure you understand what's happening.
So that's where the communication comes in. All my experience with that has brought me into the 3M wealth formula, which is my signature formula that's included in all of the programs that I'm working on. And so my initial program is actually called the Rich Life Blueprint. And I'm using that with clients that are work, that I’m strategizing for.
I'm using that with them and I'm using it also with my Prosperity Academy, which is my Nonprofit that we're serving. The purpose of that is to bring awareness, put a microphone and a mega-mic on the importance of financial wellness, and you can't be well in other aspects of your life without being financially well.
That wasn't the idea of the nonprofit, but it actually started becoming what the nonprofit is doing more because not a lot of people put the importance of financial wellness. So we want to be able to put as much importance on financial wellness and bring it as part of a wellness package of every aspect. So that's one. And the goal of the nonprofit is to support other nonprofits with their… bring in the financial wellness component in any of the programs that they're working with.
The 3M wealth formula is based on my moderation mentality and intentional money management. So part of what I have found in my decades of doing different things in the finance world is you can't just show somebody how to budget or show them how to look at things. You have to explain.
So the first M—you and I have talked about this—is your why, is your motivation.
What is the purpose of building your wealth? What is your purpose? So how are you going to get financial freedom is by understanding what your purposes are. So we have a priority list, right? So in life, we have maybe 20 things in our financial priority list.
Things come on and off the list there are a things in my opinion that should always stay on your financial priority list. One is retirement savings.
Once you start working that should be something that's always on your list. Where it is on the list changes depending on what your priorities are.
Genevieve George: Yeah, where you're at in your life and what else is going on.
Sherron Permashwar: When you're younger, it was probably somewhere on the bottom. Would you agree?
Genevieve George: Yes. Yeah. It's certainly not… it was not my top priority.
Sherron Permashwar: Neither one of us. Okay. They're at some point very tiny.
Genevieve George: Yeah.
Sherron Permashwar: But it was on there at least. So what we would advise our clients is at least if you have a 401k and they're matching it, you want to be putting at least that in there, right?
Genevieve George: Don't miss out on free money.
Sherron Permashwar: Don't miss out on free money. Exactly. That's the advice you and I both, number one, don't miss out on that free money.
So understanding your why, what is it? What are your goals? And where is it on those priorities? Yeah.
Genevieve George: What's motivating me to work more, save more? What bucket am I saving it into, and why?
Sherron Permashwar: Right because life gets busy and we forget our why, and then we go on a sawgrass mill on a shopping bridge and then we're like, “Huh? This was not part of my why.” Right? So understanding the why.
Then the second M is your mindset. So everyone's mindset is different and have different components to it. So understanding where your mindset is, like we come with a mindset from generation, right? From family, from culture, from whether we're immigrants or not, what are immigrants, like Indians are always investing in goals. So that's like something part of my family generation.
Most immigrants come with the idea they understand land, they understand real estate. So that's a universal language with everybody in the world that land is a good investment, right? So understanding your mindset, understanding where your mindset is and where it came from, and then is it aligning with what your goals are. So this is what I want to do. These are all the things that are on my priority list.
Is my mindset aligning to what it is that my priorities are?
Genevieve George: Or am I carrying around some other story that I've put on myself?
Sherron Permashwar: That you’ve put on yourself. Exactly.
Genevieve George: But what if that's not your passion? That's just what you have received as information? And you feel like I have to do that. I'm not saying you, but you may feel like you have to do that because that's how you were raised.
That's how everybody around you would invest their money. But that's a part of your mindset, and it may help or hurt how you approach.
Sherron Permashwar: And real estate and land is a heavy lift at first, right?
Genevieve George: Sure, sure. Particularly where we are, right? There is not such a thing as getting a piece of property for $100,000.
Sherron Permashwar: Oh. Maybe somewhere that we don't know about. We might have to go on a field trip.
Genevieve George: But it's not the same as the generations before us. And they held onto 'em and they kept him good. To your point, it's not as easy and a lift in our position because you can't get a property that might make sense for a reasonable a dollar amount, and you gotta still have your own home.
Sherron Permashwar: Absolutely, yeah. And well, part of your bucket, right, or part of your priority list is I am a firm believer in home ownership. I know that it's a question in today's society right now, but I'm still a firm believer in home ownership and owning your own home, and that being on your list until you're able to do that.
Genevieve George: And prioritized. It may move around. When at 20, it wasn't high, but at 25, it started still maybe I do want my own.
Sherron Permashwar: And the thing is, a lot of the time when people's priority is their own home, remember that your first home is not your dream home. So a lot of the time people think home ownership is so far for them, away or it's out of the list because they want their dream home the first time. I had a one-bedroom condo my first time.
Now I live in a 3500 square foot house.
Genevieve George: Yeah, your first home doesn't have to be your forever home. That's important too. And that all affects how you approach it, right? The mindset that you were talking about. Because if I go into buying my first home thinking that I'm going to own and live and enjoy that home forever, that's the wrong mindset, right? Because I'll hold myself up from getting that home for a long time.
Sherron Permashwar: Yep. It is. Because in my experience, you start where you can start, and that's not going to be 100 % of what you want. But you have to start somewhere. And that's the same thing with any investment. So you might want to start with equity portfolios, with ETFs or something like that, where you can start small.
Genevieve George: Yeah. And let that money work for you and then pull it out for your real estate when you're ready.
Sherron Permashwar: Right. So that's one of the approach that someone like you or I would say to them, “Okay, if this is what your goal is, these are the several ways that you can get there.” If this is one of the priorities that you have, okay, let's work on that. That bucket might be a little fund that you're putting in your fund that you're putting into some ETFs there, whatever it is that you're doing to grow that, to get to that point, right? To get to that home ownership point.
Genevieve George: Yeah. Do your priorities change, or are you working on your mindset?
Sherron Permashwar: Yes, so the mindset on money is really important because a lot of times people lie to themselves. And it's okay to lie to me because it doesn't really matter. But with money, especially, they tell themselves that they're good at it. They tell themselves that they're bad at it. They tell themselves whatever story they want to tell themselves to make the excuse to not address it. But it's part of your life.
If you don't address it now, it's going to be a different addressing later. So it's a journey, you know, just like how you're addressing your health, you know?
And then the third M is mechanics, right?
Genevieve George: Yep. So the why and the how.
Sherron Permashwar: The mindset. And then the mechanic is one third of the program.
So then we tell you the actual steps that you mechanically need to do. That's where the numbers come in, right? But this is not going to be sustainable if we don't have these two. And sometimes when you're teaching, when we're doing the mechanics, we get busy, we forget why.
So that's why we need to remember. We have to have that why in the corner. Okay, this is what I'm doing. You know what I do? A lot of my accounts that I have with my priorities, I name them the priority. So I don't forget.
Genevieve George: This is my real estate fund. This is my…
Sherron Permashwar: I named them. So it's like, okay, with the kids’ 529, Brandon's 529 or Mark's 529. That's easy, right? Because you know 529 is education.
Genevieve George: It's named for you, actually.
Sherron Permashwar: Yeah, it's named for us. But like my vacation fund, when I had a housing fund, it was called housing fund. When I was buying this house, I have to start up another fund two decades into my housing thing, it had a name.
So I remind myself why I'm doing it. Whatever works for you with the bucket, you do, I call them pots of goal. It's G-O-A-L, but we're coming up to St. Patrick's pretty soon.
Genevieve George: Pots of goal, I like that. Don't keep your money in an envelope, sort of earmarking it envelope.
Sherron Permashwar: That's fine, but I would never tell you to keep your money in an envelope because the power of compounding interest.
Genevieve George: Yes, yeah, I'm saying do not keep it in an envelope, but it's sort of the envelope system as far as how you file it in your brain.
Sherron Permashwar: So those are what the 3Ms are, and all of this is done with intention.
I told the story before where for lent, I usually give something up, and when I was younger it was meat or something of value. I’ve given up shopping because that's kind of one of the things that I am…
Genevieve George: That's something that brings you joy. That is a sacrifice you can make during that 40 days.
Sherron Permashwar: And that's it, right?
But it actually reminded me how much I do buy things without thinking about it. And Amazon, it's so easy to buy things, TikTok shop or whatever it is, everywhere, they're selling us stuff everywhere. Everything you do, somebody's selling you something.
And it just reminded me how much we do unintentionally because I don't even think about it, and I see a lipstick on sale and I'm like, “Okay, I'm gonna get that lipstick. Do I really need that lipstick? No, because I have 40 other lipsticks that are probably the same color somewhere.”
Genevieve George: But it's changing how you think about it, right? Your intention with that, if you were just living and not thinking about it, you're like, “Yep, I'm going to buy that lipstick.” But if you're actively trying to pay attention to the intention that you're putting into your money, your savings, and your spending, then you're thinking about that.
Then you're saying, “Okay, I don't need that.”
Sherron Permashwar: But that's the thing. So the thing is, I preach about intentional money management, right? And even for me, I do so many things with my money that's unintentional because there's consumerism, it's what's happening in the world right now, and everybody's trying to sell you stuff, and we're buying it.
Genevieve George: And convenience. We're busy, right? This is gonna make my life easier if we just pick up dinner on the way home.
Sherron Permashwar: And that's one of the things that's being sold to us is the convenience of a lot of this. But do I really need this? These days, I think they're smart. I put something in my cart and they know that I'm looking at it. I get 20 emails. Did you forget something? Did you forget something? Did you forget something?
Genevieve George: By the way, you could get it on sale. Here's the code, and hurry up and click buy.
Sherron Permashwar: See? So I used to use that as one of my tools. Like, okay, I'm gonna just virtually shop and not really gonna satisfy what it is that I'm looking at. But do I need another dress? We do so much unintentionally, me, myself included, that we really need to take money as a tool.
And the thing about money is it is a tool if I give it a job. But if I don't give it a job, it's like a cartoon that it finds its own job.
Genevieve George: And if I leave it in my regular operating or checking account, somehow it disappears is what you're saying.
Sherron Permashwar: It disappears.
Genevieve George: Because it's too easily accessible and not a lot of thought has to go into it to just, and now it's what on your phone, you just like double click and it's gone.
Sherron Permashwar: Convenience we're talking about.
Genevieve George: That's great. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. And that intention, we're talking about that intention around spending, but that intention applies to the savings piece too.
Sherron Permashwar: Yeah. It applies to everything. Doing everything with intention, like I said, giving the money a job. It's a tool, right?
So we're going to give it a job to be in the priority pocket that says it's our vacation fund. We're going to give it a job to say that it’s—And believe it or not, you can go on a vacation.
Let's say, I'm going to give you an example. If you are having a Starbucks that costs $7 every single day, that’s 7 times 7 is 49, right?
So that's $50 a week that you spend on Starbucks. That's $200 a month times 12 months. A cruise that I just went on, Wonders of the Sea, was $600 a person, includes food, everything.
For two people, $1,200. I just saved you. So what if you continue with the Starbucks, if it's a priority, that's what you want, then you can't want to go on the cruise and want the Starbucks because you have one set of money and you have to prioritize that money. You have to give it a job, or it'll give itself a job.
Genevieve George: And it comes back to that motivation, right? Sure, I love a cup of coffee, but it didn't give me a weekend's worth of memories.
Sherron Permashwar: And I mean, like I said, I'm about moderation. The moderation mentality with intentional money management. So I'm not telling you never drink another Starbucks.
I'm just saying your intention matters. So if you do everything with intention, you will get what it is that's important to you. I'd rather go on that cruise than have one Starbucks a day.
I'll make coffee for half of the week and then I'll sit in bed.
Genevieve George: Treat yourself to a Starbucks every now and then.
Sherron Permashwar: Yeah. Treat myself to a Starbucks. So I treat myself once in a while to it.
But because I wanna give my money, it's the tool. I wanna tell it what to do. And like I said, if we don't tell it, it'll find its own job.
Genevieve George: That's right.
Sherron Permashwar: So you control it, or it does what it wants. So that’s what the 3M wealth formula is built through all of that and it is in all of the programs including the Rich Life Blueprint that just launched.
So the program includes five modules and the first one is your spending plan. There's no budget involved in it.
Genevieve George: And is it self-guided or are they working?
Sherron Permashwar: It is self-guided and each module has little lessons. Each lesson has a video where I'm talking to you on a little guideline. And then each one of them has like I call it homework, but it's not homework.
It's like tools. Tools. Let's use that word. Each module has a tool. Each lesson has a little tool that you can use.
And this is something you have forever. You're gonna use it on yourself, your own life.
Genevieve George: And this is out there, so anybody can access it virtually, but you also teach this in person in some instances, right? You do workshops, and…
Sherron Permashwar: I do workshops and I'm actually thinking about you know, I live workshops. I do. I'm actually thinking about maybe like doing maybe some some virtual workshops with it. We'll see where it goes.
So my point about it is even someone who's great with money can use something like this to refresh themselves and keep them guided going because it's a journey money, right?
Like we just talked about me buying that lipstick or whatever. We always have to, it's not like perfection. We always have to keep ourselves moving, understanding what it is that we need to learn more.
Things are changing. Resetting ourselves a little bit because we fall off the wagon a little bit. So this program really works that way. It's not the deprivation mentality that other financial gurus are teaching because I don't think that's sustainable.
You resent yourself, you resent your life…
Genevieve George: Well, and it's setting yourself up to not be successful initially either too, because you can't just go from doing everything to doing nothing and have that feel good, right? And you said something that really resonated with me. Nobody is perfect.
So we're just focusing on progress over perfection. you can go through the program, no matter what you're, if I'm hearing you right, no matter what your wealth is at, what your goals are, it's just going to help you to align that and continue to make progress in your financial journey.
Sherron Permashwar: Yep. Yep, it is. And I'm way working on my other programs. There will be an entrepreneurial one. I feel like that's one that's needed because we have so many entrepreneurs now and so many people starting their own business, but there's no real courses on what your entity you should pick. Where are you with the entity? How does that affect you? How are you managing your money?
Most people with small businesses, they're just doing their books for taxes. And there's so much more that your numbers can be of value to you. So understanding using your numbers in your business to manage your business.
Most entrepreneurs, my specialty is between the revenue and net income or net loss. So we got to work with the numbers you have in between. And a lot of the time, it's just seeing the numbers and saying to if you paid $500 a month, $6,000 for this magazine article or magazine promo or whatever it is, what is the analysis behind that?
Five years down the line, you're still paying it because you have it on automatic.
Genevieve George: Yeah. What's the benefit of it? Are you getting any new revenue from it? Does it make sense?
Sherron Permashwar: Does it make sense? So that's it. It's looking at your numbers and saying, these are my numbers and do they make sense?
If you don't do that periodically, most things will not make sense because between five years ago to now, advertising has changed so much. So if you were doing a magazine, you might want to invest $500 in social media instead. That's going to help you.
So managing your business, looking at the finance, and seeing what you've done and then saying to yourself, “Did I intend to do this or did I want to do this or is there a better way to do it?” You know.
Genevieve George: And I think one of the things that you said, and it really applies to both the entrepreneur and the individual that might be going through your existing program is we get caught up in the day to day, and sometimes we have to take a step back and like really understand, okay, what do we have? How is it working? Where do we want to go? What are the opportunities that we need to make adjustments for?
And that applies in both. And that's what you're trying to do is like help people get out of the weeds, take a step back and understand, okay, what are those priorities? Our why, what is our why and how are we thinking about them? And like, how are we actually implementing those strategies?
Sherron Permashwar: Exactly. And once you understand the first two, the third one is not a hard thing to do. And it makes the third one—mechanics—sustainable. Understanding the first 2Ms and working on the first 2Ms makes this one really work long term.
And I know that selling long-term things or trying to give long-term to society might not be the most sexiest thing in the world that I can do with finance.
But I also believe in my heart and know by being around and working on this program that this is the way that you can have financial freedom, sustainability. If you cannot sustain what it is that your goals are and what you're focusing on, you will not be able to have financial freedom.
And it doesn't matter how much money you make, because you and I both have seen where someone makes $600,000 and they literally spend $700,000. High earners without discipline and education still is poverty.
Genevieve George: You started to break down your program. You said there are five modules. Do you want to share…?
Sherron Permashwar: So the five modules are, the first one is the spending plan. So understanding what you have done with your money and then deciding if that's what you want to continue doing.
So the spending plan is you're going to put your numbers down and kind of see is this what I want to do with it. Then we go into credit, we explain all the different aspects of credit, explaining how bad credit, good credit, interest rate with credit, how credit card falls on that.
We explain utilization because that is one of the keys to working on your credit score and your credit report. We also explain how you should be looking at it.
I'd say babysitting your credit, but I wouldn't really say that. Running your own credit report or things like that. Understanding because many people's report because they've never run one have mistakes. So you want to make sure that you know what you're seeing.
Genevieve George: And monitoring it is just a good habit anyways because, especially in the CPA space, how often have you been talking to somebody and their identity's been stolen?
Sherron Permashwar: Yep, absolutely. Absolutely. I've seen that many times. We talk about debt, 'cause credit and debt are two different things. Understanding your credit score, utilization of that, and then understanding the different types of debt. Revolving that good debt, bad debt, all those different things. Understanding how using that can help you in life; it's part of your toolbox, part of your money toolbox. Debt is one of them. Understanding your credit debt is another one.
And we go into home ownership because I truly believe in home ownership. Little things about home ownership, little things about understanding that.
And then we also have savings on it. So those are the first module. There will be a Rich Life Blueprint 2.0, which will go more into investing, real estate, taxes, insurers, the more complicated fields on things.
Genevieve George: And you're using this Rich Life Blueprint, those are for your individual clients, but also you're using it in the Prosperity Academy, correct?
And so what you're saying to me is that program applies no matter what your wealth level is.
Sherron Permashwar: Doesn't matter what your wealth level is.
Genevieve George: And so these are evergreen topics that are important, whether you're just starting out or you're established, but you need to like reset.
Sherron Permashwar: Or you need a refresher or you just need to reset, like you said, realign. It's just, and like I said, I was surprised on how much I learned while writing the program.
And a lot of this I knew, but just refreshing and new things that are coming up, new ways to look at things. So I do truly believe that it's a course that anyone, it's a program that anyone can use.
And my moderation mentality with the 3M wealth formula is embedded in every program I have. Because that's what the story is into getting to where you need to go. Each one of them has those three pillars that you need to look at.
Genevieve George: Do you wanna spend a couple minutes talking about Prosperity Academy?
Sherron Permashwar: So the Prosperity Academy, of course. The goal of the Prosperity Academy was to work with other nonprofits and bring in financial education and wellness into their program, whether it's their staff or their recipients, because a lot of staff, I found by going around and looking and I've been in nonprofit world all my life.
My first job out of college was working for the American Red Cross. As I left there being the assistant director of their accounting department in the Westchester County area. And so I've been on several nonprofit boards. Once you're a CPA, they're like, “We need a treasurer. So that's what your job is.”
You know that, Genevieve.
Genevieve George: I do know.
Sherron Permashwar: And then we get stuck in that position and 10 years later, we don't know how to get out. But being around in the nonprofit world so much that school boards, all these different things, I know that financial education is missing in that realm because the people who are passionate about whatever cause that they're working on, they're so passionate about their cause, and they're doing a great job with their purpose and their passion, that this kind of goes to the wayside.
People forget that financial education needs to be embedded in every program if it's going to succeed.
Genevieve George: You can't help 'em for free. So you have to be able to live your life and to be able to have the freedom and the flexibility to continue to help the clients you serve in the nonprofit community. And if you don't have your own finances in order, you can't do that.
Sherron Permashwar: And I'm talking that whatever it is that you are helping them with, you want it to be sustainable, right?
Genevieve George: That's right.
Sherron Permashwar: So if you are helping, for example, the Homeless Coalition helps with rent and security and all of that stuff, how much repeat clients do they get in two years they come back again for this type of help?
If you're missing a tool that you're giving them. You're giving them some of the tools, but if you don't give them financial education, that tool is missing, and they're not going to be able to sustain what you're really giving them. So you want what you're giving them to be sustainable.
So I'm super excited to tell you that we've just launched this week our first pilot nonprofit that is going to be using the Rich Life Blueprint, and we did a live launch. It was amazing. We'll put some stuff up on social media because it's going to be a journey for them.
Genevieve George: That was for this nonprofit’s team or also for the clients that they serve.
Sherron Permashwar: For clients. For three of their clients, so it's called the Holy Ground. We launched this week, and each one of these girls that are recipients at Holy Ground, they have a money coach.
I’m sponsoring giving the money coaches the program so they can use it for them in their lives. And they also understand what the ladies are doing so they can help them along with it.
The goal is any nonprofit that wants to work with this program, if they get a sponsor to help, to sponsor the program, I will come in and give additional help with it. I'm being more hands-on with the nonprofit because we're going to have money dates every month with the ladies over Zoom and try to help as much as possible.
So we'll see. We'll get feedback from them and we'll see how this first one goes.
Genevieve George: Yeah, again, you're taking this knowledge and this program that you built for the average person, but you're trying to bring it to all levels and doing that through that program.
So trying to connect with nonprofits to help their internal teams who are not being paid a lot, right? They need the help to know how to manage all of that, as well as the clientele that they serve in the community.
So you're just helping to build everybody up. And I love that so much.
Sherron Permashwar: So it's totally needed. Now we just gotta convince the world.
Genevieve George: Yeah. I have no doubt that you'll do that.
Sherron Permashwar: I'm working on it seven days a week.
Genevieve George: Yeah, I understand. Alright so tell us how people can access your program, how they can get in touch if they want you to publicly speak about your program? Anything, share that with us.
Sherron Permashwar: Oh, there is themoderatesavvycpa.com, so it's the themodernsavvycpa.com/connect.
And all of my information is on there, and you can contact me there also. You could send me a note. Sherron Permashwar. I will send you my little contact card to include in the comments.
Genevieve George: Yes, yeah, we'll have all of your information in the show notes, so that'll go in all the places.
Sherron Permashwar: Yes, so, and then we will also have on there the link to the actual Rich Life Blueprint for anybody that's interested in starting to work on that.
Genevieve George: We’d love to.
Sherron Permashwar: That’ll be amazing. And you can connect with me if you would like for me to come and speak about my program, or I have many other topics that I have blogs on my website.
My podcast is called Get Wealthy With Me. So between Genevieve and I, we want to get everybody on that financial freedom road.
Genevieve George: We're always making progress.
Sherron Permashwar: We're always making progress. And I still feel financially free because I have my 3Ms aligned.
Genevieve George: I love that. I love that. Thank you so much, Sherron.
That's it for today's episode of The Wealth Development Studio. Remember, financial clarity is powerful. Do you need help with your financial plan? Go to pelicanfinancialplanning.com to schedule a call with me. Until next time.
