From Lori & Jerry:
“I’ve been wanting to share something Jerry and I’ve been working on for about a year and a half. Not so much to beat our chest… but to offer hope to those out there that you can tame the beast that is money. We are proof.
Back in 2015 when we started Keefer Fine Art (then it was called Keefer Photography) we knew we wanted to retire Jerry from his career job early. Part of the reason we started the business was to allow us to do that… and give us income to supplement his pension and something we could do together into our old age. We’ve been working towards that goal ever since.
Two years ago we really started digging into all the things we needed to get done to prepare for Jerry to retire. One of those things was our budget… more specifically… our debt.
I honestly thought most of my adult life that I’d die in debt. We make good money. We’ve been fortunate for Jerry to have a career job that allows me to stay home with our kids. I quit my job when I was 7 months pregnant with our first child. We’ve always invested the max into our retirement accounts. But we also carried some debt… I won’t get into the whys or hows.
For the sake of this post, I’ll stop there and say that 2 years ago Jerry and I decided that we needed to do something so that we could have the retirement lifestyle we really wanted and deserved.
What did we do? Well. As entrepreneurs, we learned very early on that you need a coach to help you get out of your own way in business. So we figured we needed the same with our money. So we hired a money coach.
Oh. My. G…. Did we find the winner! Enter Penny Axton Kidd of Pennywise Coaching. Her social work background, sensible approach to money, budgets, and debt, and her non-judgmental way of coaching were the perfect fit for us.
She didn’t start by telling us what to cut from our budget. She didn’t start by lecturing us on how much debt we had or what we were spending money on (she never did that at all actually).
She started by talking to each of us. She learned who we were. She got to know how we both viewed money, savings, debt, and spending.
In the process, Jerry and I learned that we were on opposite sides of the spending and saving spectrum… which is probably why we had had so many disagreements in our many years together. I’m the saver. He’s the spender. I’m the “we need the emergency fund.” He’s the “but we don’t need to be paying all this interest.” Lol. Sounds funny now that we’ve worked through it…but boy has it caused some grief over the last 30 years!
That is the beauty of working with Penny and her wonderful expertise and wonderful self. Jerry calls her MC Penny… because she is Priceless (you know… those old Mastercard ad campaigns about things being Priceless?).
She was able to use her social work background to not only understand for herself… but to help us understand each other. THEN we could get to work on our money. I firmly believe we would not have been able to accomplish what we did without this step. Jerry and I needed to understand how each other viewed money. We also needed to understand we each viewed money ourselves.
What did we do next? We started really looking at what we were spending. We listed out all of our bills and debt. We really looked at what that debt was costing us (not just money… but the stress… the things we could not do because we were paying it… the things were were missing out on… the things we wanted to do… ).
Then we decided which things we didn’t need to pay for anymore. Penny never once told us to cut something from our budget. Not once. She never judged. She never shamed. I’m still not quite sure how she does what she does on this one… but she just does it. We started cutting stuff from our budget that we didn’t really need.
We made a plan to attack our debt. She showed us how we would pay off our debt. She showed us a couple of options actually. I will NEVER forget the day she shared her screen over Zoom and showed me the date that we’d be debt-free… BEFORE I TURNED 60!! WHAT!?! I legit got the tingles all over my body.
We met with Penny weekly… then bi-weekly… then monthly… now about every 6 weeks or so. She is always an email or text away if I need help or have a question. Trust me… I had a lot in the beginning!
Last week I sent a wire and paid off the last of our interest-bearing debt except for our mortgage and parent-plus loan. We have one 0% interest credit card that will be paid off in a few months.
You read that right. We will be debt-free (except for our mortgage and student loan) before I turn 57. We will be completely debt-free before I turn 60.
We started working with Penny in November 2023. In the last 17 months, we have paid off close to $80,000 in debt. Yes… that many zeros. I still can’t believe it. I have done the math a bajillion times. I have had ChatGPT check my math. I have had Excel check my math. We have added over $3500 to our monthly budget because we no longer have to pay credit cards or loans.
Jerry is retiring from his career job at age 60 on June 6.
Our financial planner has told us we are in super good shape even with a crappy economy and will have plenty of money to do what we want into retirement AND have something left to leave our family when we’re gone.
We no longer let our money manage us. We make it work for us.
Will we still argue about what to spend money on… I’m sure. We are human after all. But at least now we understand where each other is coming from when it comes to money. You should hear us in Costco now when one of us sees an impulse item. Penny would be so proud!
But we will never, ever be in debt again.
We no longer have to take jobs or clients because we need the money.
We get to work for who we want to.
We get to make the art we want.
We get to work with the coolest people ever – we choose our clients.
We get to travel when and where we want.
We are no longer bound by money.
As Penny says… we make our money behave.
If you are stressed about money. Feel like you can’t get out from under the bills. Want your business to pay you. Argue with your spouse about whether you should spend or save. Or just want to be better with money… I know a really super good fantastic PRICELESS coach for you!
Now, I’m off to get ready for a walk to prep for our trip to Peru. We land in Peru in a month and get ready to hike part of the Inca Trail! I’m kinda digging this life we’ve designed.”
