Episode 21: Spend Wisely, Live Wealthy: How Money Coaching Turns a Financial Plan Into Lasting Habits
What if the reason your financial plan isn't sticking has nothing to do with your investments?
Building wealth gets most of the attention in financial planning, but everyday decisions are where plans quietly succeed or fall apart. When daily spending isn't aligned with long-term goals, even a strong investment strategy ends up working uphill.
Kai Dickens, CEO and Money Coach at Dr. Budgets, works with individuals, couples, and small business owners to rebuild their relationship with money from the ground up. He joins the show today to share how money stories formed in childhood run in the background of adult decisions, why a spending plan works better than a restrictive budget, and how awareness paired with small, repeatable changes creates habits that actually last.
Listen in to learn how to close the gap between knowing and doing, how couples can talk about money without it turning into conflict, what keeps people stuck, and how clarity around your numbers can replace daily stress with lasting confidence.
What You’ll Learn:
Why daily spending habits often decide whether a financial plan succeeds.
How childhood money stories shape adult spending behavior without us realizing it.
Why reframing a budget as a "spending plan" removes restriction and shame.
How couples can discuss money without falling into conflict.
How to review three months of expenses and adjust spending categories.
Why delivery apps and forgotten subscriptions quietly derail budgets.
How small business owners separate personal and business finances for taxes.
How money coaching and financial planning work together to build wealth.
Ideas Worth Sharing:
“The foundation of how everybody does money—and most of the time, it's from what they saw as a child, and it's been completely instilled, so they don't even know—it's… like a script that's running in the background.” - Kai Dickens
“Instead of focusing on budgeting and how a budget could restrict you, what we really do is we flip it, and we're focusing on spending, a spending plan. So instead of ‘you can't spend this money,’ it's, ‘you can spend up to this amount in these different categories.’” - Kai Dickens
"Getting clarity around your numbers takes away the stress, and it gives you the ability to live." - Kai Dickens
Resources:
About Our Guest:
Kai Dickens is the CEO, Speaker, and Money Coach at Dr. Budgets, where he helps individuals, couples, and small business owners transform their relationship with money and overcome the limiting beliefs and old money stories that hold them back. He has experienced Dr. Budgets from every side, first as a client, then as a coach, and since June 2021 as its owner, giving him a real understanding of what it feels like to sit in the client's seat. A California native based between San Diego and Denver, Kai is a former mentor coach with Accomplishment Coaching and is pursuing an MS in Leadership Studies at the University of San Diego.
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:
Kai Dickens: For me, it wasn't that I was bad with my money. I've got ADHD, so the traditional type budget never worked for me. I'd go through these little phases where I'd save a whole bunch, and then I'd go and spend a whole bunch also.
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: We talk a lot in financial planning about building wealth, but if your daily spending habits aren't aligned with your goals, even the best investment strategy is working uphill. Today's conversation is about closing that gap, specifically on how budgeting and money coaching can become the foundation that makes the financial plan actually stick.
My guest today is Kai Dickens, CEO and Money Coach at Dr. Budgets, where he works with individuals and couples to transform their relationship with money from the ground up. Kai, thank you so much for being here.
Kai Dickens: Thanks for having me. I'm super excited to have our conversation today.
Genevieve George: Yeah. So talk to me about how individuals’ stories maybe come into play when they're working with you?
I think we all carry this money story, whether it's something from our past or how we grew up or whatever. How does that come through in your working with people?
Kai Dickens: That's a very interesting question because I feel like the money story is… it's the base. It's truly the foundation of how everybody does money, and most of the time, it's from what they saw as a child, and it's been, like, completely instilled, so they don't even know that it's one of these things that's kind of running, like a script that's running in the background.
I've had a client that she said that her parents never talked about money, but all she ever knew was that money was always super, super, super tight. And as she got older, she found out that, her growing up back in the day, her parents made a ton of money, but they were scared to lose it.
And she's like, "It's kind of funny." She's like, "'Cause I make over $200,000, but I hold the money like I make $20 an hour," right? And so as we were able to kind of figure out some of those things, we were able to start talking about it so that she could legitimately start changing some of the mindset habits around it and small things here and there.
I really do think that everybody has something different, and especially when you're part of a couple. One money story the wife has, one money story the husband has or vice versa. And they're always completely different, and we're just expected to throw our money together and just figure out how it works without talking about any of it.
Genevieve George: Yeah, just make it work.
Kai Dickens: Make it work. It's gonna be fine. Yep.
Genevieve George: And you do work with couples, so that's an interesting point that you made because people come from different... They have different money stories, right? But then they're coming together and merging their finances, whether they're truly merging their accounts or not, they're merging their financial lives.
How do you sort of navigate that? Some of that becomes almost like marital coaching.
Kai Dickens: Pretty much. A lot of my clients say that, "Dude, you should be a therapist." I'm not a therapist by any means, but I can hear that both of them are trying to say the same thing in a very different way.
And so having that third party in there kind of gives the one that's not being heard that... another voice, right? Because I'm completely neutral. I just want them to be on the same page. And so by actually just kind of sometimes reiterating what, I mean, person A might be saying, person B hears it a different way because it's a different lens from a different person.
You know what I mean?
Genevieve George: Yeah.
Kai Dickens: I've had a couple where…
Genevieve George: Is there an example? Yeah, you're doing it. I would love to hear an example.
Kai Dickens: Yeah. One of my recent couples, he's very, very, very type A with money. And we got on, and we were, like, looking at some of the spending, and one of the places that came up was, like, groceries and how they were just throwing money away on groceries.
So we started just kind of talking, and he, like dove into her, right? And you could just see her, she just completely shut down. All he was trying to say was like, "Well, we need to really focus on this place," and she took it to mean, "Hey, well, you're telling me that because I'm the one that does the grocery shopping, I'm doing it wrong."
That's not what he was saying, but how it was coming off and like that the harsher tone, she couldn't hear it. So I asked him, 'cause she walked off, I asked him to go and get her, and she came back. And I had him leave the room, and I just started asking her questions, and like what I could hear is because she's not working, she's not like financially contributing, she felt like the burden of all the finances was falling on her and all the mistakes were falling on her.
And he's really into the money, and she's like, “I don't care so much about the day-to-day number. I just don't wanna put us in a bad place." And so when I was able to bring both of them back into the room, I was able to kinda share what each one of them was saying, and like you could literally see both of them soften up, her kinda forgive, and he was literally like, "Oh yeah, that was my fault. I didn't mean to come off. I just get really stressed out when we start talking about money."
Genevieve George: Yeah. And that is, I mean, the stat is that's the number one thing that couples fight about, right?
Kai Dickens: Yeah.
Genevieve George: What I run into is sometimes they're ignoring it and they're not fighting it, but maybe that's the problem too.
But sohow do you help them to, like, in that situation, you were able to navigate that, but what tools did you give them for after your session to better communicate with each other?
Kai Dickens: Yeah. So I left those two with two very specific things. "Hey, you know what? Maybe you guys need to figure out if you guys wanna do the shopping together," right?
"Go and talk about how you want to approach the shopping now and understand that what happened before is in our past, and what we're trying to do right now is build something for the future. So it doesn't matter who spent too much money back then, how it was spent. We only care about today moving forward, and let's create a plan that you guys wanna do for that, and on our next call, bring that back to me."
So that was one of the things that we were talking about. And then the other thing, I kind of put them on a seven-day challenge. I was like, "Hey, so you like to spend money at… In California there's Vons, there's Ralphs, there's Food 4 Less, there's Whole Foods," they like to go to some of the more expensive places, like the Whole Foods and whatnot.
And I'm like, "Just make a list of what you guys get and then go to the grocery store together. I know it's gonna take a little bit of time, but let's go to two or three shops and figure out where you can get some of these things for cheaper," right? You don't have to go into Costco and spend $300 when you know that you guys are gonna eat out, right?
So let's go to Costco and only get necessities once a month, right? And then let's use the other grocery stores to do some of the shopping so that you're not spending as much, and then we're not doing pretty much the ADHD waste, right? Like, where you buy stuff, it stays in the refrigerator, and you throw out that $100 because you ate DoorDash four nights.
So for me, it was really just about just bringing up a couple of things so they could create some awareness around some of their habits and start having smaller conversations that weren't as high at stake, right? Yeah. Like, when they're working on little things together, it starts building some of that good positivity versus when we're talking about something that's already stressful for both of them, we're already off the rails.
Genevieve George: Yeah, you’re not coming in and trying to drastically change their life overnight. You're just trying to make baby steps towards better habits and an awareness. I like the awareness component. You talk about, let's keep using that couple as an example, but you talk about spending as a reflection of who you are and that's a part of your information on your website and all of that.
So how do you get clients to actually believe in the next steps, like their vision of where they want to be and sort of getting over those money stories and making their spending a better reflection of who they want to be.
Kai Dickens: Yeah, that's a great question also.
So instead of focusing... Even though the company's called Dr. Budgets, instead of focusing on budgeting and how a budget could restrict you, what we really do is we flip it, and we're focusing on spending, a spending plan, right? So instead of "You can't spend this money," it's, "You can spend up to this amount in these different categories."
And I spend a ton of time just trying to flip that. People are so guilty and they feel so much shame about— had one client that really wanted to buy a Louis Vuitton purse, and she's I know I've got a lot of this over here." And I'm like, "Look, you work hard enough. If you want the purse, you can buy the purse. We just have to save for it."
And so she saved for it for seven months put the money away, and then legitimately was like, "Hi, I've got it." I'm like, "Go. Go to the Louis Vuitton store and go..." She swiped the card so she could get the points, but then she paid it off literally two seconds after she walked out of the room, and she's "This is the most rewarding purchase I've ever bought," because there was, like, blood, sweat, and tears that went into to making it happen, right? And so like.
Genevieve George: And sacrifices, right? That money could have gone somewhere else, but…
Kai Dickens: Could have gone somewhere else, 100%, right?
Genevieve George: She used it towards that goal.
Kai Dickens: Or she could have just mindlessly swept, kept swiping the card and blown it, so I really think that one of the biggest things is if we can just shift the mindset from a budget being restrictive or completely bad, like a bad word, to like, "Hey, this is just a spending plan that's gonna help me get to my goals, and there might be a couple times where I spend a little bit too much, but as long as I'm under the majority of the time, I'm actually gonna be able to start working towards that plan that I want."
Genevieve George: Yeah. And you take it to a deeper level, right? When I'm working with clients at the financial planning, I need to understand what are the inflows, what are the outflows, but I'm not diving into what makes up those outflows because I'm not the one that's gonna tell you, "You know what? You really should cut cable or eat out less or whatever."
If you want to eat out every night and then not have any other luxuries in your life, that is a choice. So I'm looking at the higher level, what is that number, and just saying, "Okay, if you're telling me that number is $120,000 a year, okay, that's the number. I'm gonna use it And I am keeping them accountable to what's coming out of the account, right?
But you're really breaking down, in that 120, where are those dollars going? Is that accurate?
Kai Dickens: Absolutely. And we've probably both experienced it where you'll be like on your little sheet, "How much do you guys spend on food and dining?" "Oh, it's like $900 a month." And when I get in there, they'll tell me the same thing, and it's $2,000 a month, right?
Genevieve George: Right.
Kai Dickens: It's always like the under. It's not really ever like the over. And so it's not about making them feel bad about where their money's going. If food and dining, if they're foodies, and that's where they want to spend the money, cool. Like you said, spend the money there. But it can't also be the same amount being spent in travel.
It can't also be the same amount going out and going to Nordstrom's Rack, like Macy's, like all of these.
Genevieve George: Yeah, you have to adjust the buckets.
Kai Dickens: We have to adjust the buckets in order to make sure that 120 is being adequately spent. And like that's what I do. So like I get in there, I'm like, "All right, cool. This is the number that you said. This is where we actually are. Where do you want to be?"
And then on a monthly basis, we're just trying to get it a little bit closer to that number that they said they want it to be so that we have extra money either to go into investments, you know what I mean, or savings.
But so they can have some of those conversations and be like, "All right, I have an extra $500. Where do we put this?" Well, you said that savings and investments was one of your things. You're trying to prepare for the future. Now go back, talk to her, and let's figure out where that and how that $500 is gonna be used.
Send them right back to you so you can help them kind of break up that $500 into the plan that you've created for them.
Genevieve George: Great. I love that. And I read in your... Well, you and I spoke about this too, but you were actually a client of Dr. Budgets first. Yeah. And then really embraced the program to the extent that now you own Dr. Budgets.
So talk to us about that. What was the experience that you had as a client that made you want to do this for other people?
Kai Dickens: Yeah, for sure. So you're right. I've actually been on all sides of the coin. I've been a client, I've been a coach, and now I own it. For me, it wasn't that I was bad with my money.
I've got ADHD, so the traditional type budget never worked for me. I'd go through these little phases where I'd save a whole bunch, and then I'd go and spend a whole bunch also. And so, like, when I met the former owner, he actually hired me to be his business and life coach.
So I helped him build a lot of this from the back end, so I got to hear how his brain was thinking, and I was like, “Man, I was never taught any of this stuff by my family." And I was like, "Cool, so maybe if I hire him, I can learn how to be even better with my money so that, like..." Put it this way, he retired at 42 years old, okay?
The man knew something about saving and doing some of these good things the right way.
Genevieve George: His spending buckets were under control. Got it. Got it.
Kai Dickens: 100%, right? And he was investing the right way so that he's been able to live pretty much off of all of that. I'm like, "I could learn something from this guy."
That- that's why I hired him, 'cause I just wanted to kind of pick his brain and understand what I could do with my finances on that side. And realizing that the traditional style of budgeting didn't work for me, through our conversations, I was able to create something that helped me spend less.
So I understand what it's like to be on the client side, being a little bit nervous hearing... I used to hear his voice when I would go swipe the card. So when clients tell me that now "Oh, you're running in the background." I knew that, you work and you're gonna be so mad when I swipe this.
And I was like, "No, I'm not gonna be mad, but I'm glad that my voice is starting to be, like…”
Genevieve George: Right. Yeah, and now it's not even a swipe, right? It's a tap. It's even easier.
Kai Dickens: Yeah. It's a tap.
Genevieve George: And it just magically goes away.
Kai Dickens: 100%, so I really do think that being able to be a client and understand the, some of the nervousness, like the anxiety that a client experiences, like coming to their coaching call feeling like they've done everything the wrong way, has given me so much more of an understanding of like what they're going through.
'Cause I went through it on the same way. But it had also has given me even more of an understanding of what I need to provide in order to help clients like move through this in a way that's a little bit less, with little, a little bit less friction.
Genevieve George: And you talked about this, like those feelings, the negative feelings that we put on ourselves before going to a coach of some sort.
And that's something that you and I talked about when we met as well, is I think people carry around a lot of shame that they're not where they're supposed to be, or they know they're doing something that they could be doing better. But it's such a hard thing for individuals to get brave and just embrace that and just get over the shame and take the next steps.
So somebody finally embraces that and they call you and they say, “Okay, it's time. I need to make a spending plan. I want to work with you." What does that first meeting look like? What's the flow there for that individual?
Kai Dickens: Yeah. So for our first meeting, really all I want to do is just kind of get an understanding of what they want to create in life.
Kind of, the fun overview of like, why are you really doing this, so that I can always tie it back when four months down the line they're like, "Oh my gosh, like I'm so frustrated, I'm overwhelmed." Well, this is why we're doing it, so that we can keep moving forward. So we spend about 30 minutes kind of like just diving into life, what they want life to look like.
And I always get the irregular expenses, so those expenses that pop up quarterly, every six months, every 12 months. I need the exact numbers so that I can actually budget those ones into their rough draft because I feel like those are some of the expenses, yeah, discretionary expenses like derail a spending plan, budget, however you want to call it, a lot.
All of a sudden you save for a vacation and all of this good stuff, and all of a sudden it's just gone. You're like, "Oh my gosh, like what do I do now?" I like to make sure they have paid attention to those things and like those annual subscriptions that just randomly come up.
So we talk about those, and then we spend about an hour and 15 minutes just diving into like their actual transactions. And from us going through together and like recoding things, all of a sudden they're starting to get a very good picture on, “Oh, I do eat out a little bit more than I thought that I did.”
Oh, “You know what? Like the kids' expenses are a lot more than... What? You mean I spent $900 on this? You know what I mean?”
So there's so many little things that they learn just through our first actual working call without me having to tell them anything.
Genevieve George: Right. That's amazing.
Yeah. And I'm sure a lot of comfort comes with that initial conversation, right? 'Cause they're getting to know you and you're getting to know them, and there's a little bit of comfort there. And then let's say, okay, that call goes well and we've kind of aligned our goals and the process that you work with your clients from that initial call.
What's the end date on their workweek?
Kai Dickens: Yeah. So that's the first call, the spending plan. And then the second call, 'cause I do two calls after they've said, "Yes, I want to be in this engagement," even if it's just to figure out, like, where their money's going. Our second call is really us, like...
I'm like, "Hey, here's the rough draft. This is exactly what it look like. You guys are spending $15,000 a month, but you're bringing in 12. So we have a $3,000 deficit. Here's all of the areas where it's over, so let's just go through and let's zero balance it so that every dollar has a correct assigned place where you guys want it to be."
'Cause I can work with a couple that's the same age and has two kids, lives in the same place, same exact couple, like, when you look at numbers, ages, but how they live are completely different, right? So the structure is the same, but how the skeleton is filled in with muscle and all that good stuff is completely different.
And so, once we get that down, everyone seems to be, like, pretty excited that first month moving into coaching. They're like, "Yeah, I got this." "Let's go." Well, the second and the third months are kind of where things start doing this, right? And it's expected. I've worked with, I mean, over 200 people at this point.
I've seen a pattern, and it's typically months two and three where some of that excitement wears off, and they're really living in the real world with this new plan that they've created. And so that's where the accountability and the small steps really make the most impact because now they've gotten out of the, "Oh my gosh, everything's got to change overnight," to "No, this is real life."
We literally have to, as you said, baby step it. We're just looking at a 1% difference every time, focusing on one or two categories, trying to get it a little bit closer so that this becomes a new habit. And throughout it, it's me talking to them and listening to the money stories and the contexts that are coming up, and using my coaching skills to not only coach the black and white of the numbers, but to coach the person or the people in it so that we can start really making some fundamental change.
Genevieve George: Okay. And how long do people generally work with you throughout that process?
Kai Dickens: So I'd say on average, most people are with me for about 12 to 18 months. I have a minimum of five months in the coaching because that's about, that point where I start seeing the bell curve come back up.
I do have some clients that have been with me for seven, eight years at this point that just love the monthly accountability of having to show up, having somebody to talk to, because life changes, and as life changes, needs change. The budget changes. We change it every single year based off of their spending, some things like that.
But yeah, a little over a year.
Genevieve George: And in that period of time, obviously you're focused more closely on the day-to-day, like the spending plans and like the instantaneous decisions that we make with our cards, every single day. But are you also putting emphasis on some of the longer-term planning, their intentions to save and that kind of thing?
Kai Dickens: Absolutely, 100%. So we start off with like the smaller emergency fund and the irregular expenses account, right? So we can put money away for some of those annual things. And once they've kind of gotten comfortable with that piece, that's when we can start moving into some of the higher level things.
Luckily, if I'm working with somebody that's come from an FA that wants to invest, like that's already plugged in, right? So, say you're working with a client that comes to you, you think the budget's a little bit messy, but you're like, "Hey, we need to find about $1,000 a month to kind of get them up here."
That's the first goal that goes in, and they know that, right? Yeah. So we're automatically working that piece in. I might be like, "Hey, we could only do $750," but we're still moving forward, and then we start talking about hey, bonuses are coming in. We're not using bonuses anymore to pay off debt or just to go out and spend.
Like you said, some of your goals were X, Y, and Z, so how do we use a portion of this to go to those investments that you're looking for? So now they start seeing money coming in differently, right? A big lump sum of money comes through. What do most people do? Oh my gosh, I've got the taxes or I've got this.
They're gonna spend it. Let’s go buy that. Yeah. 100%. Let's go buy that expensive item that we've been... No. How about we take maybe 10% of it and you guys go play with that, and you take 90% and now you start putting those towards the goals. If we can't get your monthly up to that, well, these bonuses can really make a big impact on paying down the house, putting money away for retirement, helping you retire at 43.
You know what I mean? So.
Genevieve George: Do you find that there's a pattern across all the clients that you've worked with? Is there something that we're all sort of just not doing great at? Or is it Amazon? Is it groceries? Is it eating out? What is, like what is the one thing that you're like, without a doubt, it comes up every time?
Kai Dickens: I'll say since COVID, pretty much since 2020, 2021, it's the Amazon purchases, and then all of like the Instacart, DoorDash, Uber Eats. Those are the ones that I'm seeing on a regular. Like some people will have, I mean, in one client that I did, 200 Amazon purchases in a period of a quarter. And it's every day, sometimes twice a day.
Genevieve George: And then you, for you to break that down, it's only coming across on the statement as Amazon, right? But how do you break it down? Like what was essential needs versus…
Kai Dickens: So like luckily, the program that I'm using now, which is Monarch Money, they've got a plugin.
So the last like year and a half, as long as my client is plugged into that, we can actually see what's coming out. And so it's not only shopping anymore, 'cause some people are using it for groceries. But a lot of people, I'd say 75% of it is shopping. When you have young kids, a lot of it's the diapers, like the formula, like all that stuff that like as working parents, you're like, "I don't have time to run out and grab."
And so like we'll have different conversations, right? Like necessities, it's completely different, still try to, like one of the goals that I try to get people to do is only use Amazon once or twice a week. For me, personally, I have an Amazon day. It's every Thursday. So I will only order on Thursdays.
I put everything Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday into my wishlist, and then I will go through. And if it's under a certain amount, cool, if it's under about like 50, 60 bucks, I'm cool just going ahead. But if it's one of those ones where it's like $300, I'm like, "Do you need all of this that’s in here?”
Genevieve George: And I actually do that to myself as well. I just stick it all in the cart, and then I'm like, "I'll address it later." And I feel like that process of like, not immediately buying it makes me realize, well, no, I don't really need that. Like
Kai Dickens: 100%. And there's the other piece of, like, when we do it once or twice a day, it might be $20 here, it might be $30 here, it might be 40 bucks, right?
But if you're doing that six times a week, you pretty much just spent $200 or $300 on Amazon without even, like, paying attention to it. So, if you wanna spend $300, cool. Get it all together. But if you're like my shopping budget is already over; let me get this down to 150," that's when you'll go back and truly take out the stuff that you're like, "I can either wait on that till next week. I don't need that right now, but I need these four things."
Genevieve George: Right.
Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Now I, it's my understanding you work with individuals and couples. So, maybe talk to me about the difference there and on how those interactions go.
Kai Dickens: So I work with individuals, couples, and then small businesses.
The funny thing is across the board it's all very much the same, right? Somebody's coming in, they just need to create new fundamental habits, across. The only difference with an individual is you're working with somebody who's making all of the spending decisions on their own.
You're not worrying about having some spending going on where you're like, "I have no clue what this Zelle was. I don't know what this Venmo was. I don't know what this $200 expense at Amazon was," right? As an individual, it's all yours. So it's a little bit easier to move forward because you don't have anybody else to talk to.
You pop in, you're overspent. You're like, "Yep that's all me." Right. But when you're working with a couple, with the couples, it's more about getting them on the same page. I've had some meetings where only one of them comes to the meeting, right? Well, that doesn't change any of the spending if only one person's coming to the meeting 'cause only one person's seeing what's the aftermath of the…
Genevieve George: And feeling accountable.
Kai Dickens: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly, right. So with couples, I'm really big on being like, “Hey, this has to be something that you two are willing to work on together. One of you guys can go through and categorize, but you have to have a meeting every single week so that you understand what is going on in your guys' financial life.
I don't care if it's five minutes, I don't care if it's 10 minutes, I don't care if it's an hour. Yeah. You guys just have to start talking. And as long as I can get them doing that, then it starts working out pretty well. And sometimes one will come to the meeting 'cause the other one's working, and the other one will come, but they always take it back, and I make them text me to be like, "Yep, we had this conversation."
You know what I mean? So small business owners, it's very much the same. Only thing that I'm finding with small business owners, at least the ones that I work with, a lot of them are co-mingling, right? There's the personal card and the business account is being used for the same thing. You don't really care.
So with those people, the biggest thing that I'm doing is helping them understand, hey, we need $8,000 on the personal side because we run the numbers. You've got to pay yourself, what, $85,000 to to $10,000 out of the business in order to account for some of the taxes, depending on how you're set up.
This is, you're either making enough money or you're not making enough money, right? And these are the couple of things that you need to do, and then we play around with the business numbers to make sure that things flow.
Genevieve George: And do you encourage them to make that a more clean separation between the personal expenses and the business expenses?
Kai Dickens: 100%.
Genevieve George: That's where I am too.
Kai Dickens: Yes, that's the biggest thing that I can do. I've even set up some clients. One of the new systems that I'm using is having them set it up with kind of the profit first style accounting, where they've got an account that pays them, got the income account that comes in, the account that pays them, and that's the one that goes to the personal.
And only we've got the operating expenses, and then we've got taxes. Two of my clients this year already have $40,000. She's got $45,000 set aside, and he's got almost $22,000 set aside for taxes for this year, and this is the first time either one of them has ever set aside money because they know that the tax account is the account that they cannot touch.
Genevieve George: Cannot touch it. Yes. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, that is so important to any dollar that comes, especially if you're 1099, right? Any dollar that comes in, a certain amount has to be set aside for taxes, untouchable.
Kai Dickens: 100%.
Genevieve George: That's how I run my practice as well. So I love that. And not to say that there aren't personal expenses that can be covered by the business, but really getting some separation in there so that you know what does it cost to make my personal world go round versus what does it cost to run this business is such an important delineation.
And then it also makes your business, whatever it is, a little bit more sellable because…
Kai Dickens: 100%.
Genevieve George: It's not holding all of your personal expenses.
Kai Dickens: Well, I've learned too that it also eliminates a lot of the stress because not having clarity, you don't know, right? She's like, "Well..." One of them, she was like, "I know what I make, but I don't know what I need."
You know what I mean? I have no clue. If I was to go and get another job, and stop doing what I'm doing, like, where would I need to be in my everyday life? And what do I have the liberty to do? And this year she's like, "This is so fricking cool." It's because I know exactly what I need on both sides, and there is no stress.
Which I think is one of the coolest things is just getting clarity around your numbers takes away the stress, and it gives you the ability to live.
Genevieve George: On the personal and the business side. Absolutely. 100%. Yeah. Know your numbers, and you'll get a lot further.
Kai Dickens: Yeah.
Genevieve George: I love that. Now, one of the things that you use in some of your website information is living wealthy. What does that mean?
Kai Dickens: Spend wisely, live wealthy. That one?
Genevieve George: Yeah. So what does that mean? How do you break that down for people to understand?
Kai Dickens: Well, it's something… Basically, I think one of the things is we work so hard for money. We work so hard to provide the life that we want, that if we want to spend money on things, we can. As long as we do it in a wise way, we can still put money aside so that we're wealthy. We're wealthy in a million different places, right?
We have healthy bank accounts, we've got healthy investment accounts, and then we also have a healthy life. We're not just, there's no non-work-life balance. There's still a balance, right? But we're just doing it smartly. So you want to go out and buy that expensive car. Cool. Are you willing to sacrifice a couple of other things so the accounts stay healthy, and you stay healthy because you're still able to do some of the things that you want to do?
There's a difference between taking—and this is a conversation with a client—taking an $80,000 vacation that your wife wants you to take, right, versus a $20,000 vacation that is still going to provide the same memories, but do you really need to spend that extra $60,000, or can you invest that into something that's going to make you not have to work for the next 10 years?
Which is exactly the conversation that we had.
Genevieve George: Yeah. Or four $20,000 vacations over time.
Kai Dickens: 100%, right? There's so many different ways, right?
Genevieve George: Yeah. That one vacation's going to be over quick, and that 80 grand is gone.
Kai Dickens: Gone. Gone.
Genevieve George: Yeah. And you spoke to this a little bit, but the way I would describe it is in your role as a coach, you're really working with people on understanding their spending behavior, their cash flows, and you're working on short-term changes for long-term goals, right?
Yeah. And where do you see that flowing into how I work with clients? In the financial planning space? Like how do you sort of bridge that?
Kai Dickens: Yeah. So I mean, there's two different ways. My favorite is, like, when I actually take somebody who is running paycheck to paycheck, credit cards all over, and we get those credit cards paid off.
We get their personal debts under control, and we freed up that money. It's not like, "Hey, we didn't just free up $800 for you just to throw it into shopping or for, as you to throw it into... We've created a system for you. Now let's take that $800," right? Or whatever it happens to be, and "Let's go and get you somebody that's gonna make that money start working for you."
And I feel like for so many people, there's a belief that they're never gonna get to that place, right? Because they didn't know how to do it before. But what I tell them, there's a floor. I'm like, "You were on floor one. We've worked. Now you're on floor four," right? You've paid off the debt.
You're not gonna fall back to floor one because you have knowledge now, right? So yeah, maybe you put a little bit of credit card debt back on it, but you're gonna stop it at this point when it's at floor three so that you can keep leveling up. Right. And going, at this point, what we need to do is find other people on your team to help you level up.
I can't tell you what that $800 can look like if you're investing it every single month, but you can. You know what I mean? So if they can find the right person to partner with, like, all of a sudden they're now in a completely different financial bracket mentally. And that is a beautiful thing to see.
And if a person sticks to the plan, all of a sudden money's coming out, and like now we're like, "Hey, you got a raise." Well, guess what? We also get to raise up because we've already created what they need around that spending. And so now they don't need to, with every raise, just shove it back into the discretionary, right?
Yeah. So instead of it increasing.
Genevieve George: Lifestyle creep.
Kai Dickens: That's it right there, the lifestyle creep. Yeah. So instead of it creeping back into the day-to-day, now that lifestyle, we can call it the lifestyle growth, right?
Genevieve George: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And what do you want people to come out of this, listening to this conversation, like action steps for the people listening?
Kai Dickens: I'd say the first thing is to understand that, like, where you're at right now is okay, right? There’s a lot of things... What was that?
Genevieve George: No shame.
Kai Dickens: No shame at all. Yeah. Whatever happened it's okay. Nobody's gonna judge you, and there's no should, coulds, or woulds.
There's only a like, "Hey, let's do." Yeah. So coming into this, I think that the big thing, whether you hire a coach, whether you look for a coach, whether you try to do it on your own, is to get very clear on your expenses. Go back and look at your last three months, and from there, look at some of the places that you can either shave some of the money or rearrange how you're spending the money in order to make sure that you can move forward.
If you've got some credit card debt, there's a couple of different ways, but the biggest thing is to stop using the credit cards for at least six months. Just go back to a debit card. Go back to cash. Sure. Right? For just a tiny bit of time so that you can break the cycle of using the cards.
Cards are not endless money. They're money that we end up paying back a ton of money on.
Genevieve George: Yeah. Yeah. 100-fold, yes. Yeah.
Kai Dickens: Yeah.
Genevieve George: That's wonderful. So how can people work with you if they really want to embrace the coaching side of that?
Kai Dickens: Yeah. If you wanna just even have a conversation just to see if we'd be a good fit, as far as scheduling an appointment, I do a first session completely free where we're just understanding what your goals are and me letting you know, "Hey, this is how my program works," and kind of seeing.
You can go to drbudgets.com. So it's D-R budgets.com, and there's a schedule a consult on that piece. And then I'm also working on a little bit of content got a YouTube channel just started, but it's gonna be called the ADHD Money Mentor. So if you want some of the smaller tips and tricks literally just launched the first two episodes yesterday.
Genevieve George: That's awesome.
Kai Dickens: But you can go ahead and pop onto that. And while, yes, it's labeled ADHD, I feel like a lot of us have... There's a lot of things whether you have it or whether you don't, that are still gonna work, for you.
Genevieve George: Yeah, I love that. All right. Well, well Kai, thank you so much.
I appreciate you being here and sharing your expertise, and I feel confident people will come out of this with some good feelings around where they're at and hopefully taking action towards where they wanna be.
Kai Dickens: Let's go. Well, thank you so much for having me as a guest. I truly appreciate it.
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.
