Revanche, the blogger behind A Gai Shan Life, and I talk about growing up extremely frugal, helping her family out of a tough financial situation and her aspirations to become a full-fledged millionaire.
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Talk about overcoming some major obstacles, Revanche seriously is one inspiring woman. It’s one thing to try to get yourself out of debt by working hard and saving aggressively, but it’s quite another to do the same to help your family out of a tough financial situation. Although I think Revanche’s story is quite unique, I also feel like she’s not alone in being thrown into a situation where your loved ones need your help and you need to make some big sacrifices to get them out. I’d love to know in the comments if anyone else has experienced something similar! Please share your stories if you have them.
Although it was a long journey for Revanche, which you’ll learn in our podcast episode together, she didn’t just stop when the debt was finally paid off. She set herself an even loftier goal to achieve next — become a millionaire so she never has to experience debt like that again. I applaud Revanche’s dedication and hard work, and seriously can’t wait until she makes it into the two comma club.
Notable Blog Posts by Revanche
Learn More About Revanche
Shownotes: jessicamoorhouse.com/24
In this episode, I interview Carrie Smith from Careful Cents about how she paid off $14,000 in consumer debt and was able to leave her stressful 9 to 5 to become a top business coach for freelancers and entrepreneurs.
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As Carrie and I mentioned at the start of this episode, we met in person over a year ago at FinCon 2014 in New Orleans and totally hit it off. It was actually Carrie, myself and Cait from Blonde on the Budget that hung out quite a bit at that conference, and I am really looking forward to doing it again at FinCon 2016 in San Diego. Speaking of FinCon, a huge congratulations to Carrie for winning Best Entrepreneurship Blog at the 2015 Plutus Awards this past September. Way to go girl!
Carrie has a really interesting story all about overcoming huge financial challenges and taking some big risks to live the life she knew she deserved. She went into debt, she went through a divorce and she had a really stressful accounting job that turned her into a workaholic. But she saw the light at the end of the tunnel and worked her butt off to get to where she is today. If you’re looking for some mid-week motivation, this podcast episode is it!
Notable Blog Posts by Carrie
Useful Resources for Freelancers
Shownotes: jessicamoorhouse.com/23
J. Money from the popular personal finance blog Budgets Are Sexy and I talk about making money online, getting fired, giving away $90,000 and making budgets sexy again.
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J. Money from Budgets Are Sexy and Rockstar Finance has been in the personal finance game since 2008, so he knows what’s going on when it comes to talking money. In this episode, we discuss how he became a blogger, why getting fired was the best thing that ever happened to him and how he’s been able to give back in a big way. Not only is J. Money just a super cool, genuine guy — I owe him a big one because talking to him for this episode was the kick in the pants I needed to move forward with my rebrand and future money coaching business. You know when you have an idea, but are just too scared to take action because it’s not perfect yet? I’m a big perfectionist, and it’s definitely held me back from trying new things and taking risks that could help me in the long run. But J. Money is such a an inspiring guy with everything he’s accomplished, I’m gonna take a chapter out of his book and just do it!
So thanks J. for motivating me to start my next chapter. You rock and it was a pleasure having you on the show!
We mentioned a few things in this episode, so I’ve listed everything below. I’m also including J.’s side hustle story series even though we didn’t talk about it because it’s just too cool not to mention on here.
Submit Your Side Hustle Story
Notable Blog Posts by J. Money
Shownotes: jessicamoorhouse.com/22
I talk to Plutus Award winner and debt blogger Melanie Lockert about her experience tackling $81,000 in student loan debt and becoming a full-time freelancer and debt crusher advocate.
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It was such a pleasure interviewing Melanie Lockert from Dear Debt. I’m an uber nerd and couldn’t contain how much I love Portland (where she currently lives) as you may have gathered from me blurting it out at the beginning of this episode. But in addition to secretly wishing I lived on the West Coast again, I’m also a huge fan of her blog and have been for many years, so it was a huge treat to be able to record this episode with the ultimate debt crusher.
Melanie’s story is one that I’m sure many of you can relate to. She took out a loan to do her bachelor’s degree, then got into her dream school of NYU to do her master’s degree. That meant she had to take on even more student debt. The grand total tallied up to $81,000 in student loan debt. That’s basically a down-payment on a house in Toronto or several very lavish tropical vacations.
Melanie ended up leaving New York after graduating to move to Portland to be with her partner. Although Portland is way more affordable to live in than New York, the economy isn’t great and she struggled to find work. But Melanie didn’t let that get her down. She hustled and worked her butt off to find work and eventually turned her blog into a full-time job. And this year she even won a Plutus Award for Best Debt-Focused Personal Finance Blog and was nominated for Best Contributor/Freelancer for Personal Finance. You go girl!
If you’re looking for a podcast episode to inspire you to break up with debt or just conquer something that seems completely impossible, you’ll definitely want to listen to this episode. And make sure to check out some of the links below that include a way to submit your Dear Debt Letter and some of Melanie&rsp>
Notable Blog Posts by Melanie
My Experiences with Debt & Unemployment
Shownotes: jessicamoorhouse.com/21