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Farnoosh Tarabi
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Elizabeth Cronice McLaughlin
There was one incident in particular I can remember which I think will haunt me until the end of my days, where I took my kids to a free high school play and all my accounts were overdrawn and I had I think $1bill for a snack and my kids wanted something that was more than that and I had to say to them I I can't do it. And that that window of time was just an enormous wake up call to me.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Welcome to so Money everybody. I'm Farnoosh Tarabi. I Love a good comeback story. And today's episode chronicles how one woman claimed her financial independence after a number of setbacks. Her story is so inspiring I had to share it with you. Our guest is Elizabeth Cronice McLaughlin, former Wall street lawyer, leadership consultant, single mom and founder of the Gaia Leadership Group. And from the outside, Elizabeth' life looked picture perfect. Elite career, national media appearances, a thriving business. But behind the scenes, she was battling deep financial insecurity, credit card debt and the emotional weight of divorce and single motherhood, all while running a nearly seven figure company. In this deeply personal and powerful conversation, Elizabeth opens up about hitting financial rock bottom during the pandemic. She shares how investing in financial education helped her pay off $50,000 in debt in build emergency savings and teach her children what she was never taught, how to talk about and take control of their Money. Elizabeth Cronice McLaughlin, welcome to so Money. It's so nice to reconnect after so many years.
Elizabeth Cronice McLaughlin
I know it's been like 10, I think since the first time we were introduced, which is crazy. Yes, it's wonderful to be here.
Farnoosh Tarabi
I look forward to sharing your important story with our audience. Just for listeners, for background, Elizabeth and I first met at the Daily Worth, which was a right, which was a newsletter at the time and important newsletter for women and money and our careers. And I was a contributor and you were there as well. And I was coming out with my book When She Makes more. And we're looking for ways to collaborate. And what I really wanted to have you come and talk to us about today was how financial literacy has transformed your life in a later stage in your life. When we see your bio on paper, when we see you on CNN, when we see you on YouTube and all the great work that you're. We think Elizabeth's got it all together and in many ways you do. But this piece of it, this financial independence piece of it was still a work in progress. So I wanted to bring you on to unpack that for us. But first tell us a little bit about who you are and the work that you do, which is so important.
Elizabeth Cronice McLaughlin
Yeah. So I was a Wall street lawyer for 15 years and when you and I first met, I was just emerging from the practice of law where I worked with a lot of very. I represented Goldman Sachs and my firm did work with Lehman Brothers and I had been in very high profile corporate job and I left the law and founded a company that really went into leadership consulting pretty much exclusively for women in very male dominated professions. And that led very quickly to Us doing an enormous amount of in person training in investment banks and law firms and private equity, and also with companies in the top five of the Fortune 500. And it was a real huge success for a long window of time. And simultaneously in that window, I got married, had two kids, and then got divorced in fairly short order. And throughout all of it, despite all of that success, I had some really deep seated insecurities about my own capacity to manage money. Even in the windows of time where I was making lots of money, I really consistently felt like I had no idea what I was doing. And there were other aspects of my life that impacted that. I was living in New York City, which is really expensive. When I had been single, I had a usual single, robust life in New York City, where I was out to dinner five nights a week and dressing the part of working on Wall Street. And I had never really figured out how to save. I knew some basics of investing, but it was all very seat of my pants. And the thing that really started me down a little bit of a financial spiral was first my divorce, which took three years and had some enormous financial issues associated with it that really put me in a very serious hole. And then the pandemic hit and everything went to shit. I don't know if I can curse everything went to shit.
Farnoosh Tarabi
We can in that context. Yes, because there's no better word.
Elizabeth Cronice McLaughlin
Yes, exactly, exactly. Pre pandemic, in 2018 and 2019 particularly, my company was doing better than it had ever been. We were close to a seven figure company in that window of time. I was traveling all over the country on behalf of corporate clients and all the work that I was doing was pretty much in person. Training. I would go into organizations and train hundreds of women and sometimes multi gendered groups on leadership and sales and how to really make a positive impact from inside their organizations. And of course, when the pandemic hit, that work vanished and overnight my income dropped by 65% and we had to lay off almost all of our staff at the company. And the final impact of that didn't really start to roll home for me until 2021. But all of a sudden, by the time we got to the beginning of 2021, I found myself just in very dire straits. And as a single mother of two kids, I have full custody and they live with me full time, suddenly worrying about things like, are we going to be able to make our rent? Do I have enough money to buy us a pizza? There was one incident in particular I can remember which I think will haunt me until the end of my days where I took my kids to a free high school play and all my accounts were overdrawn and I had, I think, $1 bill for a snack and my kids wanted something that was more than that. And I had to say to them, I can't do it. And that window of time was just an enormous wake up call to me. And so I vowed from that moment forward that we were never gonna be in that position again. It was a real kind of come to Jesus moment for me where I was like, I can't do this and be raising two kids and be so afraid for us. Like, I would wake up in the middle of the night in like a cold swe, worried that everything was going to fall apart. And so I had to really take a hard look at what I was doing in business and what I was doing personally. And that was the moment where I realized that what I needed was not just financial education, although that was really a critical part of recovering from all of that. But I also really needed a deep dive on my mindset about money because clearly there were some deep seated issues there that I had never addressed.
Farnoosh Tarabi
I want to go back to something that you said, which was that I always had this feeling that I didn't know what I was doing with my money. And I want to understand how that was showing up for you before you were even maybe married. I think that things snowball as life progresses. If we don't address kind of our underpinning issues around money, emotional and tactical early on, there is going to be a, a tsunami waiting for us. And sounds like you went through that. So I kind of want to see, understand the early signs. How is that showing up for you? What were the telltale signs of? I don't. I know I'm making money, I'm employable, I'm educated, I'm successful. But this area is weak. And here's why.
Elizabeth Cronice McLaughlin
Yeah, I now understand a lot better. I've also done a lot of, I should say I've also done a lot of trauma therapy in the last three years. So I have a real understanding now about how some of the things that happened in my childhood also played out with, in relation to my finances. I grew up in a household where money was a real bone of contention with a father who is extremely good with money, very rigorous about his investing, very rigorous about his spending, almost to a point of being stingy, but it has landed him very well. He retired at 59. He's 83 right now, extremely financially stable. And then Simultaneously, my mother, when I was growing up, spent an enormous amount of money that we really didn't have at the time. And there were battles inside my house that I can remember from when I was about 7 years old over spending on things like Christmas presents. And one of the traumatic experiences that I remember from being a kid is that after we opened our Christmas presents on Christmas Day one year, that night my mother came to my room and said, your father has said we spent too much on Christmas presents and you have to return some of them. And that clearly was not the fault of myself or my sibling. But at the same time, there was this sense of constant insecurity around money, right? That it wasn't safe to have money and it wasn't safe to spend money. And so the way that manifested when I started making money was that essentially I had no guardrails and I didn't ever have a kind of financial education that said, this is how you even make a budget, right? And so the money would come in and the money would go out. And to this day, I can't believe it. Like, I look back on it from where I am right now, and I look at the income that I was earning in my early 30s on Wall street, and I cannot believe how much money I managed to spend on God knows what. Like, sure, some of it was on Marc Jacobs shoes. Like, I'll cop to that, some of it was on all the brunches out at high end bistros in New York City every weekend. But the vast majority of it, I think, just got frittered away. And I was living above my means, no matter how advanced my means got. And I didn't have a sense of how to reel it in. And so there was always credit card debt. I had been carrying credit card debt since I was a freshman in college. I got poached by one of those tables at my college for a credit card within the first week of being there. And. And those habits just got deeper and deeper the more advanced I got into adulthood. And honestly, I just to give credit where credit is due. Who knows where I would have been if I hadn't become a mother? Because the responsibility to my children and to make sure they had a good and secure and safe life is really the thing that finally pulled me out to. You can't keep living like this. And I do want to say one other thing about this, because I think this is an important thing for women. I carried an enormous amount of shame around all of this for many years that I would not talk to People about money. I would not talk to people about where I was financially. I was afraid, even in business, that if people found out that I had debt or that my divorce had gone the way that it had gone, that it would cost me clients. And I just want to say that I think one of the things that we have to think about, and I know you're really big on this farnish, but that we have to think about is the way in which, both generationally and societally, many of us, especially Gen X and older, I think, were taught even still, that women weren't capable of managing money or didn't have the credibility to manage money. I was 3 years old before women could open a checking account in their own names. Some of this, I just have to say, I think, is imprinted on us from very early on. My father, I love him, told me from very early on that I should marry rich. That I was, Which I didn't do. That was an excuse for not teaching me the things that I needed to know to manage my own money and giving me the sense all along that no matter how successful I was, there was something inherent to me that made me incapable of managing money. So for anybody who's listening, who may be in the same boat, I just want to say it's not all on you. And the moment where you confront that thing of. Of I have to get past the shame and actually do the work because I am capable of doing this right. If I can be successful in my career, I can do good things for my family in other ways. I can learn to manage money. And that, to me, was a huge turning point. Yeah.
Farnoosh Tarabi
You know what I think of when I hear about anyone saying, just marry a rich guy, a man is not a financial plan.
Elizabeth Cronice McLaughlin
Exactly.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Which brings me to marriage. Now. You are burying a lot of this guilt and shame around your finances. On the. On paper, you're making Wall street money and living in New York City and living large, but not a lot to show for it in terms of savings and investments. And so now you're getting married. How is that dynamic now in a relationship, in a partnership? Financial dynamic?
Elizabeth Cronice McLaughlin
You mean in my marriage, specifically?
Farnoosh Tarabi
Yeah. Like, how did you talk about money, not talk about money? Were you repeating the pat that your parents played out?
Elizabeth Cronice McLaughlin
It's interesting. I married somebody who was not terribly successful by traditional measures, and I believed that I could support us as a family unit, which I believed, I think, very aspirationally. I think that I thought that because I was successful and had traditionally been successful, that there wouldn't Ever be, say, a recession. And it, again, the magical thinking, looking back is pretty wild. But I also, unfortunately married someone who was also not good with money. And. And that meant that when, for instance, my salary was cut during the recession on Wall street, all of a sudden there was like widespread panic. And it. There's plenty more I could say about the reasons why my marriage devolved, but I'll just say that I strongly encourage anyone, no matter who you are married to, to get a prenup. And also that I strongly encourage everyone to maintain separate bank accounts because financial abuse is a real plague, particularly on successful women. And I learned some lessons the hard way as a result.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Sorry to hear that. Sorry to hear that. It's so important. You can get a post. Nup too, ladies and guys, if you don't, if you didn't get it before you got married, you can do it now. And a lot of people think that when you do that, that it's a precursor to divorce, that there's something inside of you that's doubtful that this marriage will successful. No. Many divorce attorneys actually say that of all the prenups that they have prepared for their clients, I think, like, very few actually come back and ask for the divorce later.
Elizabeth Cronice McLaughlin
Yeah.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Yeah. It's interesting. So I want you to now take us to the breaking point where you realized I need to take control of my money. And I'm going to guess it's when a lot of us were cooped up inside during the pandemic. You mentioned your business lost a ton of revenue overnight. And that, I'm going to guess, might have been a moment.
Elizabeth Cronice McLaughlin
Yeah, it was really scary and definitely was also a moment where it brought some real clarity into my business also from the standpoint of what I had been doing, because one of the things that I had been doing, and again, mindset stuff, but one of the things that I had been doing is I'd actually been giving away an enormous amount of scholarships to our programming. We started doing virtual training and had been doing that really since 2018. And I had this real guilt about, like, making money off of training people to do positive things in the world, because some of what we do, actually all of what we do right now is impact consulting, where we work with people who know they're here for a big reason to make positive change. And I felt guilty about charging people who maybe had struggle about paying for something and I gave away too much. So this was also a component of what was happening at the time. In addition to us losing all this money due to the pandemic. And I really had to have a flip on this about the value of what I do. So that was also a big chunk of this was, I need a financial education, but I also need to understand that I already give an enormous amount of myself publicly. I do a free YouTube broadcast on politics, law and action five days a week. I have been providing free content through a whole bunch of means for 15 years now. And to be able to come back and look at my business and my earning capacity with a lens of, oh, no. Like, however much I may disagree with certain aspects of capitalism, I still have to live within it. And therefore, I also have to support my family. Allowed me to also make some shifts in my business to make sure that our earning increased again. But in addition to that, I definitely had this moment of saying, I've got to get some real financial education. And it took me a while to figure out how to do that. I didn't want to invest in a financial education that wasn't going to be for the long haul. And I was really not interested in anybody who was out there doing, like, a crypto get rich quick kind of scheme. I wanted to.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Which there were many during the pandemic. Yeah.
Elizabeth Cronice McLaughlin
Yes. And this, the whole kind of like, bro sphere of this was also really off putting to me as a woman. I wanted something that felt like it was really designed for people with a family who were interested in building wealth for not just their own security, but also for their children. And so after doing a whole ton of research on that, I actually signed up for a program that completely changed my life.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Yeah.
Elizabeth Cronice McLaughlin
And that program, it was Budget Dog Academy with a fellow by the name of Brendan Schlagbaum, who. Who's a genius at this stuff. And it took me a long time to make the decision. And honestly, even at the time, I was like, this is a bit of an investment in myself with. With some fear about what I was going to get out of it. Completely changed my life. Like, I wish I had done it 20 years sooner.
Farnoosh Tarabi
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Elizabeth Cronice McLaughlin
Yeah, one of the things that and Brandon has a lot of free content, so I'm not giving away anything here. One of the things that you're invited to do is to do a three month look back on all of your finances before you even join the program. They want you to look back at everything that you've spent, where it's gone and what are your needs and what are your kind of discretionary spends. That was an absolutely revolutionary and shocking exercise to me because I had not until that point ever been in the habit of tracking my spending in any way. And when I realized how much money we were bleeding, right even just on things like doordash, I had a real kind of wake up call that there was actually more money available there than I thought if I could just get a handle on where it was going and start to budget. And so then the next step was actually learning how to budget and that now Is I do all of this in Excel spreadsheets now, where I know exactly what our budget is for every month. I track all of my spending in rocket money, which is really super easy. You just link your accounts, downloads. It's like super simple. And I started to finally, for the first time ever, track where every dollar went. And the advantage of doing that was that once I started that process of just really directing my attention and my energy to where I was spending our money, strange things started to happen. Like, I started to make a really concerted effort to pay off my credit card debt for the first time ever. And once I started putting that focus in there, the debt actually dropped rather quickly, like more faster than I had expected. And also, I think because I was paying attention to my money for the first time ever, I was also paying more attention to the work that we were doing in our business to generate revenue. Directing my attention this way allowed me to grow, start to pull us out of the pandemic slump right from a financial standpoint, but also simultaneously allocate every dollar that I was personally earning because I still had staff to pay in the direction of paying off my credit card debt. And I was able to get all of my credit card debt paid off, which I think at that point when I went in with was close to $50,000. I managed to get all of that paid off in under six months. And I was shocked by it. But it was just simply a matter of understanding that where we were bleeding money, if I could just pull that in and stay focused on the actual budget, that money could then be used to pay off debt. And then once the credit card debt was paid off, and I had some other debts that were hanging around out there that were longer term debts, but I was able to then say, okay, what do I want to do with this money when the credit card debt is paid off? And the next thing was I never want to be in a situation again where I'm with my kids at an event and I only have a dollar. So let me build an emergency savings fund. And I did that. The next thing that happened was like I built up an emergency savings fund that had. I keep like roughly now, I would say two to three months in there because I'm now in the process of starting to build back up my retirement and do investments and the like. But I built the emergency savings fund next. And then I finally got focused on a Solo 401k, which I didn't know a damn thing about. Frankly, before I did Budget Dog, I had no idea how to set it up. I had no idea how to do it, what the amount was, the limits, any of that, how I could do it from the company, how I could do it for myself. And I started doing that actively last year for the first time ever. And the great thing about that now is that understanding how that works, it almost becomes, like, habit, right? It's automated off my paycheck, and you.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Have to just learn it once and. And agree to do it once and make a schedule once. Yeah, that's what I always say to people. Like. But I want to go back to. What was obviously happening as well was your fear. Right? Like, I'm hearing you talk about how, oh, my God, I didn't realize just how much we were pissing away. And, like, I. But getting to the point where you actually look at those figures must have been terrifying.
Elizabeth Cronice McLaughlin
It was. Oh, it was unbelievable because, like, the credit card debt was only a fraction of what my total debt was at that point. Because I had student loans that I'd never paid off from law school. I had, at various times on Wall street when I had my sense about me, made 15 or $20,000 payments against it. But I came out of law school with 150 grand in debt and had only paid off, I don't know, maybe like, a third of it. And the interest on it was so high that I had paid off that third, like, probably three times over. And then miraculously, in the middle of this whole process of trying to pay down my debt, I qualified for student loan forgiveness from the Biden administration. So that was also something that happened in the middle of this that was, like, miraculous almost. I had this sense about it of, I'm finally doing the right thing here and putting my focus where it needs to come. And there is. Because to me, money is also about energy. There was just a shift in the way in which I was dealing with my money, and that had certain benefits that came along with it. So I'm not gonna say it was like, fate that my loans were paid off, but that was another huge chunk. Like, instantly, I had $80,000 of debt wiped away, for which I will be forever grateful. Like, again, change the trajectory of my life and the lives of my children. And there was an enormous amount of fear. I will say one thing about. Just one more thing about Budget Dog. Cause I know it's not an ad, but I think this is a really important point that your listeners may want to hear about. One of the things that happens in Budget Dog is you get a session with a therapist who focuses on financial issues. And I had never done a lot of therapy in other areas, but I'd never done anything related to psycho, the psychology of money and money management. And that one session was revolutionary to me. And I came out of it with a really deep understanding of the self sabotage mode that I had been in. And also what came out of that was I had mantras that were about what I could do with my money and what was possible for me that I started repeating every day. Now, I don't want to get too Stuart Smalley on everybody because it sounds that way, but I will tell you that the thing of saying to yourself, I can build a complete financial foundation, I am worthy of having money, my children are worthy of stability, and so am I. Saying those things to yourself every day really does have an impact because you're building up your own self confidence to be able to make good decisions. And I think part of what was going on with me was that I had so little faith in myself that as you said, it was scary to even look at where I was. And once I started to have this sense of, I can do this right, I am worthy of this. And I happen to think we all are, right? Like, it's not like I'm magically worthy of it. I think all of us are worthy of financial security.
Farnoosh Tarabi
And deserving of it. Yes.
Elizabeth Cronice McLaughlin
And deserving of it. Yes. And I'm a big proponent of universal basic income and other things. We could talk about other ways in which this plays out in our culture. But I think it's very important if you've struggled with a sense of unworthiness about money, to really make the conscious choice to build yourself up. Because that I had a moment at the very beginning when I was looking at how far in debt I was and my extreme negative net worth. It was really frightening when I looked like hundreds of thousands of dollars in the red. And when I finally looked at it and realized that I actually could acquire the skills to dig myself out and way more, everything started to click into place. And I'm not saying that you can rescue yourself from that level of debt in a matter of a year or two. There's definitely things I'm still working on there. But simultaneously I've managed to eradicate all my credit card debt, build an emergency savings, invest in my retirement, have a taxable brokerage account that I invest a couple hundred dollars into every week, and to start to really save money for the first time in my life. And even though that doubt, rather still sometimes creeps in to be able to be where I am now at 54 and say, oh, I may not actually have to work until I die. I may not actually have to be afraid of ending up homeless. Right. Because these were things that were running around in my head for a really long time. And I think you have to choose to create your own courage at certain moments. That was something that I had to consciously work on every day and that I still, frankly, have to consciously work on at least once a week. I may not be doing the mantras every day any longer, but there are moments where I'm like. And then I'm like, no, here we are. I'm worthy of this. I can build a solid financial foundation. I'm doing the work.
Farnoosh Tarabi
This is such an important message, you coming on here. I'm just thinking about, had you heard someone like you 10 years ago on a podcast, Right. Lay it all out and say, I have this. I had this much in debt. I was this buried in bills, and I got educated, and it was scary. But then I did the thing and I addressed my trauma, and I'm not alone. And I have two children and I'm single parenting. Like, what an inspiration. What an inspiration. Do you know, like, this is gonna. You're gonna change people's lives. And I also want to know how you're seeing it manifest through your kids. I'm really curious to see what. Maybe what they're. What you think they're picking up on.
Elizabeth Cronice McLaughlin
Yeah.
Farnoosh Tarabi
What you talked about.
Elizabeth Cronice McLaughlin
Yeah. This is a really important question also, because one of the things that I realized, and it makes me so sad now when I think about it, but that if my parents. And again, I gotta say, I adore my father. He's an amazing man. And he just simply, I think, generationally dropped the ball with me. And I can't really blame him for that because of how he was raised. Right. But when I think about how different my life would have been if someone had simply sat me down and said, this is how you do a budget. This is the percentage that you want to live on. You want to put 30% into your investments. This is what I do with my kids. Anyway, 10% into your savings. If you don't have an emergency savings built up, and then you want to live on the 60. These are the guidelines I've given my kids. Other people may have different guidelines, but to be able to say to them, you have to save and invest some of your money, and then to set them up, because this was another choice I did. I set them up. With greenlight accounts. So my kids are already now at 11 and 13 investing in Vanguard index funds and it's only 150 bucks they've gotten there from saving their allowance or something like that. But they check it like daily. And I've also said to them, you are not allowed to take money out of your investments to buy an electric scooter. You're not allowed to take money out of your investments when you decide you want a new mic for your gaming setup, which my son just bought yesterday from saving his allowance. You have to leave your investments in there for the long haul. And things are going to go up and things are going to go down, but we're going to dollar cost average it. I get this explicit with them about this stuff because I don't want them to ever feel as disempowered and afraid of their own choices as I did. Now, it does mean we have some very serious discussions in this house now about how we're going to spend our money. And I say to them, we're ordering too much takeout. Again, doordash is where we tend to blow the budget from time to time. And I do say things to them like, we are saving money for X our summer vacation at the shore. And in order to do that, we can't go spend $300 at the mall this weekend on new clothes. Again, raising growing kids, sometimes you don't have a choice in these things, but we do. We're very explicit about it in the house. And I also have gone to the point, which never happened in my house growing up, of sharing in an age appropriate way, I guess is the way to put it, like our financial picture. Because they're a part of my family. Right. We are a family together. And so they are interested, for instance, when we launch a new program in my company to know how it's doing. And I will say with them, to them, we had a great day today. We had three more sales and that's fantastic. Or we're revising our website and it's costing this much money and sometimes they care and sometimes they're like, that's great, mom, whatever. But what I really want to be able to do is cultivate in an environment where you don't have to be ashamed to talk about money and you don't. It's not scary. And it's also something that is foundational to taking care of yourself.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Right.
Elizabeth Cronice McLaughlin
Want both. Self care. Yeah, exactly. Empowerment.
Farnoosh Tarabi
It's personal. Hygiene. Hygiene, Exactly.
Elizabeth Cronice McLaughlin
Exactly. Yeah.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Oh my gosh. I. You gave me so much more than I thought we were going to get in 30 minutes. And it's not hyperbole. I really do think, Elizabeth, you're people are going to listen and really take what you say to heart and to action. And so for that I'm so grateful for you to spend time with us, us and I'm so glad we reconnected. Thank you so much. Tell us where we can learn more about your work.
Elizabeth Cronice McLaughlin
Absolutely. The Gaia Leadership Project is my company. You can reach us on the web@gaialeadershipproject.com and currently our primary offering for people who might be interested in this is something called the Ripple Effect Institute. And what we're doing now is working with leaders who really know that they're here for a big purpose and want to build out like a legacy level impact for future generations. Speaking of generational impact, it's right now the thing that I'm the most focused on is how do we create a better world even in really challenging times. And so linked in your show notes is going to be a link to apply for a free strategy. Call for your audience to learn more. Yes, yes. To learn more about the Ripple Effect Institute for folks who might be interested in figuring out how they can make a really positive impact for change right now. And you can learn more about that there. But gallileadershipproject.com is the primary place to find me and you can also find me on YouTube five days a week week at Resistance Live ECM.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Oh my gosh, I love the consistency. You're speaking my love language. It's, you know what I know which is that showing up every day, your case, five days a week, it's, it's such a, it's such a lift but it's such, it's so needed and we so appreciate it. Thank you.
Elizabeth Cronice McLaughlin
Absolutely. It's been such a great pleasure to be here and I feel like I might have a vulnerability hangover tomorrow. But that's okay.
Farnoosh Tarabi
Thanks Elizabeth. Thanks so much to Elizabeth for joining us. Links to follow her are in our show notes and I'll see you back here on Friday for a fresh episode of Ask Farnouche. I hope your day is so money. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. Hey, this is Josie Santee from the Every Girl Podcast, and this episode is brought to you by Nordstrom. Summer's here, and Nordstrom has everything you need for your best dressed season ever, from beach days and weddings to weekend getaways and your everyday wardrobe. Discover stylish options under a hundred dollars from tons of your favorite brands like Mango Skims, Princess Polly and Madewell. It's easy, too, with free shipping and free returns in store order, pickup and more. Shop today in stores online@nordstrom.com or download the Nordstrom app.
Title: Rebuilding After Divorce, Debt, and a Pandemic: One Woman’s Financial Comeback
Release Date: June 4, 2025
Guest: Elizabeth Cronice McLaughlin, Former Wall Street Lawyer, Leadership Consultant, Single Mom, and Founder of the Gaia Leadership Group
Farnoosh Torabi opens the episode by expressing her admiration for inspiring comeback stories. She introduces Elizabeth Cronice McLaughlin, highlighting her impressive career and public persona contrasted by her private struggles with financial insecurity, divorce, and single motherhood. Farnoosh emphasizes the transformative journey Elizabeth undertook to achieve financial independence despite significant setbacks.
[02:12] Elizabeth shares a pivotal moment that served as her wake-up call:
"There was one incident in particular I can remember... I took my kids to a free high school play and all my accounts were overdrawn... I couldn't do it. That window of time was just an enormous wake-up call to me."
This incident underscored her financial instability despite outward success, highlighting her lack of financial literacy and the emotional strain of managing money as a single mother.
[04:56] Elizabeth delves into her background as a Wall Street lawyer and her transition to leadership consulting:
"I was living in New York City... I had never really figured out how to save. I knew some basics of investing, but it was all very seat of my pants."
She admits to living above her means and accumulating significant credit card debt, a habit stemming from childhood experiences with financial instability and conflicting parental attitudes toward money.
[09:48] Elizabeth reflects on her childhood financial dynamics:
"I grew up in a household where money was a real bone of contention... there was this sense of constant insecurity around money."
These early experiences fostered a lack of financial guardrails, leading to reckless spending despite a high income.
[06:47] Elizabeth describes the compounded financial blows from her divorce and the COVID-19 pandemic:
"My company was doing better than it had ever been... Then the pandemic hit, and overnight my income dropped by 65%."
This sudden loss in revenue forced her to lay off staff and confront the harsh realities of her financial situation as a single parent.
[16:50] The emotional toll of financial instability comes to light:
"I was just in very dire straits... worrying about things like, are we going to be able to make our rent? Do I have enough money to buy us a pizza."
Elizabeth recounts the distressing moment when her financial struggles became painfully apparent to her children, serving as a catalyst for her determination to change.
[19:17] Elizabeth introduces the pivotal role of Budget Dog Academy in her financial transformation:
"After doing a whole ton of research, I signed up for a program that completely changed my life."
This program provided her with essential tools for budgeting, tracking expenses, and shifting her mindset about money.
[24:09] She elaborates on the transformative exercises from Budget Dog:
"One of the things is you get a session with a therapist who focuses on financial issues. That session was revolutionary to me."
Therapy helped her address deep-seated beliefs about money, replacing self-sabotage with empowering mantras such as:
These affirmations bolstered her self-confidence, enabling her to take control of her finances.
[27:46] Elizabeth discusses the practical steps she took to rebuild her financial standing:
"I started tracking where every dollar went and made a concerted effort to pay off my credit card debt... I managed to get all of that paid off in under six months."
By meticulously budgeting and prioritizing debt repayment, she eliminated approximately $50,000 in credit card debt rapidly.
[28:16] Elizabeth highlights an additional financial breakthrough:
"I qualified for student loan forgiveness from the Biden administration... instantly, I had $80,000 of debt wiped away."
This unexpected relief further accelerated her path to financial stability.
[33:37] Elizabeth shares her commitment to teaching her children financial responsibility:
"I set them up with Greenlight accounts... they are investing in Vanguard index funds."
She instills principles such as saving, investing, and understanding the long-term value of money, ensuring her children are equipped to manage their finances wisely.
[36:43] Creating an open environment around finances at home:
"We are very explicit about our financial picture... I want to cultivate an environment where you don't have to be ashamed to talk about money."
This transparency fosters a healthy relationship with money for her children, free from the shame and fear she once experienced.
Elizabeth concludes by reflecting on her journey from financial despair to empowerment:
"I may not have to work until I die. I may not have to be afraid of ending up homeless."
She emphasizes the importance of financial education, mindset shifts, and proactive planning in achieving financial independence.
[37:02] Providing resources and next steps:
"You can reach us on the web@gaialeadershipproject.com... linked in your show notes is a link to apply for a free strategy call."
Elizabeth encourages listeners to take actionable steps toward financial literacy and empowerment.
To explore Elizabeth Cronice McLaughlin's work and resources for financial empowerment:
Join the So Money Members Club: For additional resources and support, visit SoMoneyMembers.com.
This episode serves as a powerful testament to the transformative power of financial education and mindset shifts. Elizabeth’s journey underscores that with the right tools and determination, it's possible to overcome significant financial hardships and build a secure, empowering future for oneself and one's family.