Kumiko Love is an Accredited Financial Counselor®, successful business owner, blogger, and mom to her 7-year-old son. Her unique, practical and fun budgeting method and techniques have helped thousands of women all around the world take control of their finances, pay off debt, save more money, and build a life they love on a budget they can afford.

Check out The Budget Mom:
WebsiteFacebook
Instagram
YouTube
Twitter
The Budget By Paycheck Workbook

Connect with KFE
KFE Solutions
KFE Blog
Instagram
LinkedIn
Facebook


Mike: [00:00:00] Hey everybody, welcome back to in the trenches with Michael King where we talk with business owners, leaders, and executives about the lessons they've learned while fighting in the trenches of the business battlefield. I am Michael King

[00:00:23] I think in business. There are two early defining moments that really shape the future of the business. One of those early moments is when you decide that you're going to go all in and make something actually into a business. There's a conversion, so to speak, between, Hey, this is a fun hobby and. Yeah.

[00:00:45] I got to start treating this thing like an actual business and look at it through the lens of profitability and the cash flows and those kinds of things. The other turning point is when you have this epiphany that I need a team. I don't think I can actually do this by myself. I've got to figure out what hiring somebody looks like and bringing somebody on board and, and helping them to, help me be successful.

[00:01:09] So. This is a journey that a lot of people that started off of a solo entrepreneur go through today. I'm talking with Miko Love. You might know her better as the budget mom. She's got a huge following on Instagram and Facebook and Miko started off in a very similar way. She had this need to create a tribe of people that she wanted to share with her journey about how she was trying to get out of debt.

[00:01:34] Miko was a divorced, single mom, working full time, found herself under a mountain of debt and started going through the journey of getting out of that debt, and she decided to share that journey on Instagram. And over the years, she built a huge following and. Gave a lot of people a plan and hope on how to get out of debt, and it's some point Miko realized that she had more on her hands than just a hobby.

[00:02:00] She actually had a business and so she's going to tell us the story of her journey from hobby into business. And she's also going to tell us about how one night she found herself asleep at her desk and a stack of emails that she was trying to respond to and realize that she had actually been working more hours in her business than she was when she was at a full time job.

[00:02:23] And that wasn't really. What she had signed up for. She didn't sign up for something that was going to require her to work until two in the morning and wake up at five and start all over again and not see her child. And that was her aha moment of I need to hire somebody on the team. So, she's going to share her journey through hiring somebody, how she found them, how she knew they were a good fit.

[00:02:44] And a, it's actually just a really incredible story. So, without further ado, here is my conversation with Miko love, AKA the budget. Mom. Maaco. Good morning. Thanks for joining us today. 

[00:02:57] The Budget Mom: [00:02:57] Oh, good morning. 

[00:02:58] Mike: [00:02:58] So Miko or as people maybe know you better. This is how I came to know you. You're also known as The Budget Mom, and you were sharing a story with me about a night earlier in 2019 when you woke up in the middle of the night and realized that you had passed out kind of in the middle of all your work materials.

[00:03:18] You had fallen asleep and you realized in that moment. I need help. I need a team. I can't do this by myself because this isn't what I signed up for. Is that right? 

[00:03:29] The Budget Mom: [00:03:29] Yeah. Basically, yes. It was one of those things where, you know you're working until two or three o'clock in the morning and you're getting up at five and only getting a couple hours of sleep every night and just realizing you're overwhelmed and overworked.

[00:03:43] Mike: [00:03:43] Well, tell us a little bit about the backstory. 

[00:03:46] The Budget Mom: [00:03:46] Well, really, you know, it's funny because I never thought I would be in this place. I started the budget mom not just start a business. That was never my intentions. In fact, I started the budget mom to build a community, so it was me in my desperate time of need, really struggling with.

[00:04:05] How to manage my finances as a single mom and being newly divorced and dealing with a pile of, of debt. so, I went searching for a tribe, other women who knew how I felt and knew about my struggles and someone that. And people that can help support me on my financial journey as I tried to work everything out, and as I started sharing my life and my debt journey on Instagram, my, you know, this idea of the budget mom really, really grew and it grew exponentially.

[00:04:36] I mean, we started the budget mom, it started with my very first blog post in 2016 and. It's now 20 you know, 2020 now. But we've grown by millions of followers and the business has just grown in ways, like as I wasn't anticipating, and you know, I've been running this multimillion dollar company from the corner of my 800 square foot apartment in my kitchen for the last three years, and just kind of taking it day by day and really following my heart and my gut on my business journey.

[00:05:10] And so that's my back story. 

[00:05:12] Mike: [00:05:12] Can, I assume you didn't find the tribe you were looking for when you started the budget mom? Is that the reason that you decided to kind of put a stake in the ground and say, Hey, I'm going to start this community because was it because you couldn't find that community didn't exist for the single mom that was going through those struggles?

[00:05:29]it was 

[00:05:29] The Budget Mom: [00:05:29] more really the fact that if, here's the thing, finances are a really scary topic to talk about. It's really embarrassing even to our co, like our closest friends and family. I had the support network in my real life and my personal life. You know, I had my mom, I could talk to you, but. I guess I didn't, I was more embarrassed.

[00:05:50] And so I wanted to community who want, who didn't know me personally, I think helped me open up and talk about some of the things that were really hard with my finances. But, you know, also to find people who understood me who were going through the same things. You know, the people in my life, they weren't at the point that I was at.

[00:06:11]and so that's why I went initially looking for that community. 

[00:06:15] Mike: [00:06:15] Why do you think it is that finances are so hard for people to talk about? And I'll tell you as a guy that does business finance for a living, it's not any easier to talk about business finances. Why do you think that is? 

[00:06:30] The Budget Mom: [00:06:30] It has a lot to do with how we were brought up.

[00:06:33]so for everyone it's a little bit different. They feel a little bit differently about talking about their finances. You know, I grew up, my mom was a single mom. She worked three jobs, three jobs to raise me and my sister money was not talked about. I saw the struggle from a very different standpoint as when it comes to growing up with it.

[00:06:52] I saw. The look in my mom's face when I would ask her mom, I need new tennis shoes for basketball. I saw the struggle when I saw her take out her credit card every time, we needed to go to the grocery store to pick up a gallon of milk. That's the type of thing that I saw, but it was never really talked about.

[00:07:10] So for me, talking about it is very hard and it's, I think my situation's a little bit differently. Look. I graduated with a finance and accounting degree. I worked in the financial industry for over nine years. I am an accredited financial counselor. I am one of those people that should have never struggled with money.

[00:07:30] Right. I mean, it seems that way. I think that's why for me it was really hard to talk about was because the position that I held with my day job and my background as far as education goes, I felt like, geez. Here I am supposed to be telling people how to manage their money when I can't even manage my own.

[00:07:50] That's what made it really embarrassing for me. So, I think different personal life circumstances, how you grew up around money and the conversations that you had within your family. Talking about finances, really, it molds how we see finances and how we're able to talk about it. 

[00:08:08] Mike: [00:08:08] At what point in your mind did that go from?

[00:08:11] This is a cute community of really supportive, helpful peers too. Boy, this looks a whole lot like a business. This is actually a business now. What did that transition look like for you? Well, 

[00:08:23] The Budget Mom: [00:08:23] when I started sharing my journey and the tools that were helping me in my life and the budgeting method that I had created for myself with my community and with my readers online, we started getting significant amount of requests saying, Hey, can you offer this to me?

[00:08:40] Can you make this somehow an offer this to the world? I really think it would help me in my life. That's the first time I think I realized that what I had created for myself could truly change lives and we just got tons and tons and tons of requests for my materials and my resources and the things that I were doing that I was doing in my personal life.

[00:09:03] And we did that. We offered them as printable products for a long time because I had no idea how to create a physical product. I created my first physical product and it was a complete disaster. It was just awful. but I didn't give up. I knew that my leaders could really benefit from the resources that I was using, and I was finding success in my own life with it.

[00:09:26] So we kept trying. And I think that as the business grew as far as offering these resources to the community. It was probably when we hit our first million dollars that I really looked at it in a whole different light. I mean, when we started first making money, I thought to myself, that's the first time I thought to myself, oh my gosh, this is different than what I went and set out to do.

[00:09:50] This is turning into something, a business. I started looking at things differently. I started looking at things more on a business scale than I did a personal scale, but when things really trained. For me, I think for the business aspect is when we hit that first million dollars and I, I knew that with the growth we were seeing and the time I was spending on the budget, mom, something had to change as far as growth within the business and the team that I surrounded myself with.

[00:10:22] Mike: [00:10:22] Let's jump back really quick. You touched on something that I think a lot of people are either afraid to experience or they have experienced, and that's, you said that you've launched your first physical product and it was a shit show my words, not yours. What? What does that look like? What, what did you put out there and then what did sales look like or was its customer use?

[00:10:40] What? What about that launch made it, I'll call it a failure in your eyes? 

[00:10:45] The Budget Mom: [00:10:45] Well, it was a failure in my eyes. So, here's the thing. We did our first planner. It was a planner, not a budgeting help tool. which I think was my first mistake. I moved away from what people were really searching me for. And, and coming to me for, that was my first mistake.

[00:11:04]I went through staples to create that product and they did a fantastic job. They helped me in every way that they possibly could, but I wasn't prepared on my end of making that the best product possible. So, I made it in a free resource called Canva because I didn't know how to use Adobe. And it was made with PDs and not actual graphic designs software.

[00:11:26] And it was like blurry and awful. But. We ended up selling out. Here's where I was really blessed and fortunate though, and what saved me on that. I knew from the very beginning when I started looking at this, this the venture as a business that. I did not want to rely on debt or financing for my company.

[00:11:49] I knew that from day one, we are a debt free company. Everything that we do is in cash. I think that was the only successful part of that initial launch was the fact that I didn't finance it and I wasn't in debt if the product didn't sell. I think that's the scariest thing when launching a product. If the product is fine, what happens if the product doesn't sell and I'm left with a ton of debt that I can't see back for a product that just tanked?

[00:12:18] That's the, for me, that was the number one scary thing. I think it was a failure in the fact of, like I said, the design work. I wasn't prepared. I didn't know and use the correct design software, but not only that, it took me eight months to sell out of the 2000 books that I did produce. And so I lost a lot of cashflow during that time because I had to come up with a ton of cash to make that product that I felt I could've spent differently in other areas of my business where I would have been put to better use.

[00:12:55] And so I, I think I stepped out of the gate a little too soon with releasing my first product just because I didn't know and have all the skills to produce it correctly. 

[00:13:06] Mike: [00:13:06] Do you think it was a mistake though, or was it a lesson that you really, was it a, a pace that you had to go through so that you could learn how to do it right next time?

[00:13:15] The Budget Mom: [00:13:15] Definitely, yes. It was not a mistake. I'm still glad I did it because I learned so much. Every single time we create a new product, or we launch a new product, I'm learning something. It's the number one reason why as the owner and CEO of this company, I don't just step back and let. People do the work for me.

[00:13:34] I am literally involved in every single aspect of my business. I'm getting down there packaging my own packages. I'm working on shipping. I'm part of the graphic design team. I literally have my hands in every single part of my business, but I do that for one reason. I feel like I won't be able to learn, grow and change things if I don't know what's going on.

[00:13:59] A lot of my friends and family were like, well, Miko. You know, you're the owner. Why don't you just step back and let the workers, do you do it for you? Well, for me, I would feel like I don't know what I would need to know about my company if I did that. so, I learn a lot every time we do a new launch for a product, but.

[00:14:18] I also listened to my readers feedback. So, my reader's feedback is so, so critically important to us here at the budget mom, because we're doing this for them. The products I launched is for them. And so, we are constantly learning. Every year we're making our products a little bit better and better, and that first initial launch was part of that process.

[00:14:39] If we didn't do it, we wouldn't have got to our next steppingstone of making our products even better the next 

[00:14:45] Mike: [00:14:45] time. It's interesting how many people have products on the market and their emails come from, do not [email protected] or whatever because they don't want the people emailing the back. But it's like, okay, that sounds great and everything, and I get how that may be saves some time, but how are you going to learn and evolve and hear what your customers want if you don't give them all the op, the possible channels to let you know what's great or what's, what's horrible about your product?

[00:15:12] The Budget Mom: [00:15:12] Yeah, customer service. I guess that's another thing. I never expected customer service to be such a big part of our business, and for us to spend so much time on it, but it's actually really huge. I read and see every single email that comes through. I personally respond, me or my assistant, I see every single one because I want to know.

[00:15:32] I want to know what my readers are saying, what they're asking and what they're needing from me. It's really, really important that I see those things. And so, yeah, I never thought I'd be part of the customer service world, but we are definitely in a very big way. I think 

[00:15:49] Mike: [00:15:49] as business owners, if we ever find that we're not in customer service, we're in a really dangerous place.

[00:15:55] At the end of the day, you can't have cashflow problems if you don't have customers, right? You can't have marketing problems. You can't have all these other problems that come. There are no employee problems if you don't have customers because you don't have any employees. But we jumped way ahead because.

[00:16:13] We went from you doing all the work to now you have this team but tell me about the aha moment when you said, all right, the budget, mom can't just be the budget mom anymore. I need to find some really some really great people to surround myself with and helped me. What was that aha moment for you? 

[00:16:29] The Budget Mom: [00:16:29] So really, you know, I left my full time job in February from the financial world of 2019 and I did that for one reason, to spend more time with my seven year old son who was six at the time.

[00:16:44] I lost a lot of memories and a lot of time with him. Probably one of my biggest regrets starting his business was the time I took away that I can never get back with him. so, I, I set a goal well to be able to do more things with him. I think that, you know, that night when I woke up in the pile of my paperwork, it was very clear and evident that I was actually spending less time with my son than I did when I was working just a regular full time job.

[00:17:12] I'm taking on the budget. Mom full time came with a lot more work and responsibility than I had ever imagined, which in turn led to less time with my son. I started realizing I could not wear all the hats when. I realize that but staying up till two or three o'clock in the morning, getting up then at five o'clock working 14-hour days and literally feeling like it was no longer fun.

[00:17:40] What I was doing was no longer fun. It was becoming work and just robot work, just doing things just to get them done. And I didn't want that life for me. I didn't want my business to be that way for me. and so that's when I realized, okay. The budget moment is my baby. It. It's my passion. It's my life.

[00:18:01] It's everything to me. It's what I literally, I feel like I was put on this, on this earth to do. However, that said, I cannot do all the work on my own, and I knew that I couldn't grow because I'm only one person and my knowledge. I mean, it's only that, you know, I knew that I had to surround myself with people who are smarter than me, who had skills and knowledge that I did not possess in order for us to get to a different place and for me to delegate so I could get some more time back and free up some more of my time to do the one thing that I set out to do.

[00:18:37] And that's to be there more for my son. 

[00:18:40] Mike: [00:18:40] I know from having the confidence to delegate. Two people is a struggle. There's, there's certain things that I think. Correctly or incorrectly that I do better than anybody else could do, and that that's an integral part of my brand. And so, the thought of having somebody else do that, sometimes that makes me really nervous.

[00:19:01] Did you have any of those same kind of feelings as you were getting ready to hire your first person and how did you overcome, how did you overcome those internal struggles if you did. 

[00:19:12] The Budget Mom: [00:19:12] Yeah. You know, I did. I have a hard time letting go control, and I don't necessarily think it's a trust issue. I know that there are people out there who could do what I do in the way that I feel I would want it to be done.

[00:19:27] However, with that being said, my job is very different in the fact of the relationship that I have with my readers. I didn't want someone else out there talking to my readers and presenting the business in a way that I wouldn't want it to be done. I think that was my number one fear. I made my first hire in just August of 2019 so not even a year ago.

[00:19:50] And the way that I got over that fear was hiring someone, not only someone I could trust. But someone who is passionate and just as passionate about the mission that we're doing here at the budget. Mom, knowing that they care and finding someone like that really, really helped in finding Ryan. My assistant was just a blessing.

[00:20:13] I mean, it was like finding a needle in a haystack for me. I followed my heart and my gut when it came to hiring her, and ultimately it was probably one of the best decisions I made for my 

[00:20:22] Mike: [00:20:22] business. Two questions on that. Where did you find her? And to, what was it about your interactions with Ryan during the interview process that gave you the confidence that Ryan shared the same passion that you did?

[00:20:36]The Budget Mom: [00:20:36] I actually put the job out on indeed. I had no idea what I was doing when I made my first hire. and then we posted it. We crushed, posted it on my Facebook page because I want to just try to find a reader. I wanted to try to find a follower for my first assistant, because I knew that they shared that passion and we ended up getting over 800 job applications for my first assistant position.

[00:21:01] It was craziness. it took me over a month to weed through them. We held over 30 interviews. It was insane. But the moment I met Ryan; I knew. You know, the way that she laughed, the way that she talked about finances in her life, the fact that she was a follower of mine for over a year and followed my budgeting method and her own life and the way that we got along.

[00:21:28] You know, one of the things when I was making my first hire, I remember calling my mom and I was like, mom, I don't even know how to do this. We got all these job applications and I don't even know what I'm looking for. Like I don't even know what to do. And my mom probably gave me one of the best. Pieces of hiring advice and she doesn't even own a business.

[00:21:44] She told me Miko when you hire someone, hire someone on their personality, not on their skills, because skills can be taught, but their personality can't be. Make sure you find someone that you're comfortable with. Make sure you find someone that's caring, and kind find those personality traits. The rest will come.

[00:22:11] And I leaned on that, and when I met Ryan, all those personality traits were there, and I jumped on it and it was perfect. It was a perfect match for us 

[00:22:21] Mike: [00:22:21] moms. 

[00:22:22] The Budget Mom: [00:22:22] Oh my gosh, it's so weird. My mom has turned into my business mentor. She has never owned a business in her entire life, but I think moms really ground us, right?

[00:22:33] It's like sometimes when things get over our head, they are the really, the people that we go to and they're like, okay, wait a minute. Let's rethink this. Let's take a breath and step back. My mom is that person for me. 

[00:22:48] Mike: [00:22:48] It's crazy how they do that. You could have a mom that's never owned a business or whatever, and she'll spout out some wisdom on physics somehow one day, like, how do you know this mom, judge Wapner I learned it on judge Wapner 10 years ago, or something crazy like that that they have.

[00:23:06] They just have this uncanny way of taking these, you know, bits of wisdom that they picked up somewhere and knowing just how to place it in your life to make you better in that moment. 

[00:23:17] The Budget Mom: [00:23:17] Yeah. It's funny because when I did my first hire, I was focusing on skillset, right? I was focused on, okay, you didn't make sure that they can do this and this and this and have this education.

[00:23:26] It didn't even once occur to me about personality traits, and it's funny because that's how we ended up hiring was based on an individual that had those personality traits. So, it worked out really well. 

[00:23:37] Mike: [00:23:37] That's awesome. So, what's the biggest problem you've got to solve this year to get you where you want to go?

[00:23:45] The Budget Mom: [00:23:45] 2020 we are looking at distribution and product production. The biggest struggle that we have right now is we have more demand than what we're able to keep up with. And as a debt free company money, it all comes down to. Production projections, our inventory turnover times and how long we keep stock and inventory, but not only that, we're trying to negotiate better shipping prices and negotiating with these companies as a small business.

[00:24:16] Let me tell you, it's like pulling teeth. It's one of the biggest struggles that we have faced so far with our business is getting those shipping prices down for our leaders. and then it's really about, you know, making sure that distribution, we just brought distribution in house. We just got a warehouse.

[00:24:32] And so. This is all a new business venture for me. I, you know, it's funny because most of the time I'm like, I have no idea what I'm doing, like what the heck is going on most of the time. So, distribution and product production, I think is going to be our biggest hurdles in 2020 but I also have a feeling that we'll come out on top and will really make things work for the better as far as our products go.

[00:24:58] Mike: [00:24:58] It's funny, I think if you went back a year ago. No  somebody said, Hey, a year from today you're going to talk to this guy and he's going to ask you what your biggest challenges, and you're going to say, Oh, distribution and figuring out inventory turnover and getting those shipping prices down. You probably would have thought they were absolutely crazy.

[00:25:17] The Budget Mom: [00:25:17] No. You know what? If someone told me a year ago, I'd be the owner of a warehouse distribution center. I would have laughed in them 

[00:25:23] Mike: [00:25:23] face. What every little girl dream of having when they go off. 

[00:25:28] The Budget Mom: [00:25:28] And like distributions that are what, what is going on? So yeah, the fact that we're even here and it's pretty remarkable.

[00:25:35] Mike: [00:25:35] I think it's interesting when you think about your evolution as a business owner. I was talking to somebody last week and to me it's a little bit like your teenage years. There are always these new challenges that you didn't know about. So maybe when you're, we'll say 12 or 13 years old. All you can think about is I'm going to turn; I can't wait till I get my permit.

[00:25:56] I'm going to be able to drive and it's going to solve all these problems and it will be great. And then once I have my driver's license, Oh boy. And so, for a couple of years, you're in stuck in this spot where you can't really drive yourself around, but you want to do the things that requires you to do that.

[00:26:11] And then you turn 16, right? And it's like, ah, wait a minute, now I have to pay for gas. Now I have car insurance. How am I going to do that? Well, I've got to get a job. Well, how do I get a job? Then you get a, you know, once I have a job, I'll have all this money and I can do all these things, and then you're like, okay, well.

[00:26:27] McDonald's wants me to work until 12 o'clock and I got to work on Saturday and Sunday. And so, I can't go to the football game. And so, there's this whole new set of problems. And so, you're always, you know, kind of striving for this next goal. And then as soon as the goal gets there, you find that you've got to grow again, and you've got to solve a whole new set of problems.

[00:26:45] And so it's an interesting evolution, business ownership of you set goals and you get there, and then you cross the finish line and it's like, okay. The next race is starting five minutes ago. And so now you've got to figure out this whole, this whole new thing. And so I think if people talk a lot about how the, if you don't enjoy the journey of business, if you're just going after some particular dollar amount or some followership or whatever, you're not going to make it because it is definitely a journey and not a destination.

[00:27:17] The Budget Mom: [00:27:17] And. You know, that's funny that you say that because I've said that from the beginning, that if you're only, if in your business you are only focused on the next dollar amount, if that is your truly or only goal in your focus and your passion, it's going to be really hard for you. you need to have a different passion in what you care about has to be on a whole different level than just making money.

[00:27:41] And I think that really has to be there in order for your business to be successful. 

[00:27:46] Mike: [00:27:46] What can we expect from you in 2020 what's next? Now that you have the fancy distribution center, what are you going to be distributing? Can you share with us anything that's coming down the pipeline? 

[00:27:56] The Budget Mom: [00:27:56] Yeah, so we have a brand-new planner that we're going to be releasing in June of 2020 it's coming out in two new sizes, two new designs.

[00:28:04] Last year was our first launch of that planner. We only offered it in one design one size. So, you're getting a lot more options with that brand-new cover materials. So last year we did cardstock. This year we're doing a brand-new plastic for our covers, which is going to be fantastic. We're also offering a new, we have a new binding system this year that we're going to be using for all of our products, which is going to be huge.

[00:28:29] Now we are releasing the budget by paycheck workbook, which is my biggest product ever. we sell out. Always have this product every year. That launch happens in October. I can't say what that's going to look like this year, but I'll tell you right now, it's different than anything we have ever offered.

[00:28:46] It's by far one of the main things that I am excited about in 2020 and that's going to be huge. But you know, we from products, we have other things happening. We were offered an official book deal. and so, we are going to be. Working on getting that book or books released and finished in 2020 and 2021 we also had the opportunity in 2019 for a TV show and the production and pilot for that was filmed in 2019 and at the end of the year, and we'll see where that takes us in 2020 if whether or not a network is going to pick up that series a, the budget mom series for a TV show.

[00:29:28] For us to help even more people in their lives in a different media that we haven't explored yet. So those are a couple of things that are happening in 2020 

[00:29:37] Mike: [00:29:37] I like how your kind of like lay all that out there in the most humblebrag way I've ever heard. Oh, we have a new planner coming out and it's going to have a better binder than last year.

[00:29:49] And yeah, we've got this other thing coming out later also that I've just struck a book deal and also shot a pilot for a TV show. So, we'll just see how those things go. The biggest humblebrag I've ever heard. That is super exciting for you. 

[00:30:02] The Budget Mom: [00:30:02] Yeah. You know, it's funny because people say that all the time, but like in reality, I guess I'm just.

[00:30:08] Like so overwhelmed with the opportunity and I just feel so completely blessed and fortunate for the opportunities we've been given for the budget. Mom, I still wake up every day just like in awe and amazement of where we are. A lot of the time I get really emotional about it because it's just so crazy to think about where I started.

[00:30:29] You know, a single mom in a pile of debt. Struggling to put food on the table for my kid to where we are now. It's just an amazing thing. 

[00:30:39] Mike: [00:30:39] And because of that struggle, the amount of people you've been able to help get out of their struggles as well. Just through sharing your story. And there's, there's very few things I think that are more impactful on somebody's life, maybe other than health, than finances.

[00:30:53] And, you know, people like you that, that show people that light and give them hope that there is a way to get out of those struggles. And. You know this, not only is there a light at the end of the tunnel, but this is how to get there. So, I thank you very much for that. it's, it's an awesome service.

[00:31:07] So if people want to follow along to find out what's happening with planner binding in book deals and TV shows, how can they find you and follow along. 

[00:31:17] The Budget Mom: [00:31:17] So I'm mostly no one on my Instagram at the budget. Mom, I share a video every day. I've shared a video every day for the last two years. So, I literally detail my day to day spending my personal finances.

[00:31:32] Everything is shared there on my Instagram. If you want more detailed in-depth instructional type videos, you can follow me on YouTube. Just search the budget mom. I also have the budget mom.com where you're going to see and find all of my free resources. So, the number one thing we focus here on the budget mom is free resources.

[00:31:53] We spend a lot of time and energy in those. I have a free resource library as also as a free email course to get started on your budgeting journey. And that's all on the budget. Mom.  

[00:32:04] Mike: [00:32:04] I will put links to all of those things in the show notes and then all of our social media. So, if you want to get some of those free resources or follow along with the budget mom's story and get some of her daily videos, we'll have links for those.

[00:32:16] In the show notes for the episode. Bekah, thank you so much for taking the time this morning to share your story and to let everybody know about how you've dealt the budget mom and some of your struggles. Thank you.

[00:32:40] Thanks for joining us today. Please don't forget to subscribe to in the trenches with Michael King on your favorite podcast platform like Apple, Google, or Spotify. Once again, I'm Michael King with KFP solutions. We'll see you again next week. .