If you’ve ever delayed looking at your numbers, dreaded a bookkeeping meeting, or felt a pit in your stomach when someone says “Let’s review your finances,” this episode is going to feel like a deep exhale.
In this conversation, Danielle sits down with financial advisor and partner at Orange Financial Brad Cunningham for an honest look at why entrepreneurs struggle with money clarity and why confidence doesn’t come from spreadsheets. It comes from understanding your numbers and applying that knowledge to your life and your business.
Key Takeaways:
- Money Avoidance Is Emotional, Not Logistical: Most entrepreneurs avoid their financials because looking at numbers exposes vulnerability. When you understand the emotions underneath, clarity becomes much easier.
- Savings Habits Matter More Than Investment Choices: Brad explains why even the best investment strategy can’t fix a poor savings rate and why behavior is the real foundation of wealth.
- Traditional Budgets Fail Because They Feel Limiting: Instead of obsessing over restrictions, focus on understanding your cash flow and aligning spending with your values and goals.
- Entrepreneurs Often “Out-Earn” Their Problems Without Solving Them: As revenue grows, lifestyle often expands at the same pace. Real financial health requires intentional guardrails.
- You Need a Money Team, Not One Money Person: Bookkeeper, tax accountant, CFO/coach, and financial advisor—each role supports a different part of your financial picture, and they should work together.
- Tax Strategies Shouldn’t Sabotage Long-Term Flexibility: Saving money this year shouldn’t come at the cost of future options or long-term growth.
- Clarity Creates Confidence: When you understand your numbers and the behaviors behind them, financial anxiety drops and decision-making becomes easier.
Topics Discussed:
(00:00) Intro: Brad’s Background and What He Does
(02:43) Why Entrepreneurs Avoid Looking at Their Financial Data
(03:32) Fear of Financial Vulnerability and How It Impacts Decision-Making
(05:39) The Problem with “Putting the Cart Before the Horse” in Investing
(06:09) The Truth About the 4.4% Savings Rate and Why Traditional Budgeting Doesn’t Work
(09:56) The Danger of Trying to “Out-Earn” Your Problems & What Will Actually Solve Issues
(11:09) The 20% Savings Benchmark for Entrepreneurs
(12:16) Danielle’s Breakdown of the 4 Essential Members of Your “Money Team”
(15:16) Rethinking Tax Strategy and Future Flexibility
(18:31) Building Launch Plans for Your Children
(20:39) HSAs, 401(k)s, IRAs, and 529s: Why Context Matters
(21:50) Pitfalls with Traditional Budgets and Using a Better Method of Budgeting
(26:33) Promo: Kickstart Accounting’s “Check Your Books” Service
(27:45) Pitfalls with Traditional Budgets and Using a Better Method of Budgeting
(29:44) Final Thoughts on Confidence, Clarity, and Long-Term Planning
(21:36) Outro: Like, Share and Subscribe!
Resources:
Connect with Brad | https://goorangefinancial.com/
Check Your Books | kickstartaccountinginc.com/checkyourbooks
Book a Call with Kickstart Accounting, Inc.:
https://kickstartaccountinginc.com/book-a-call/
Connect with Kickstart Accounting, Inc.:
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/Kickstartaccounting
YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@businessbythebooks
Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/kickstartaccountinginc
Episode Transcript
00;00;00;00 - 00;00;10;07
Danielle Hayden
Hello and welcome back to Business by The Books, the podcast that teaches you how to use your financials to better manage your business.
00;00;10;10 - 00;00;12;01
Danielle Hayden
Brad, welcome to Business by The Books!
00;00;12;04 - 00;00;13;13
Brad Cunningham
Thank you! Thank you for having me.
00;00;13;16 - 00;00;27;22
Danielle Hayden
We started to dive into the behaviors of clients before we hit record, but before we continue that conversation, can you tell the audience a little bit about yourself, who you are and and what you do?
00;00;27;25 - 00;00;37;24
Brad Cunningham
Sure. I'm a financial advisor. A bit of a coach in the financial world. Went from an original background of teaching fifth grade in public schools down in South Florida. My degree was in elementary ed.
00;00;37;27 - 00;00;39;26
Danielle Hayden
Sounds terrible.
00;00;39;28 - 00;01;01;19
Brad Cunningham
It was. It was an interesting environment. You definitely felt needed. I don't know how much we really taught curriculum. It was more, “Don't beat up” or “don't do this” or “don't,” you know? It was, it was a rough crowd. Bless your soul. It was fun. I had no visions of doing anything different other than teaching and coaching, but I flipped into finance 22 years ago
00;01;01;22 - 00;01;24;14
Brad Cunningham
based on some hiccups and investing in the wrong things at the wrong time, and I'm like, I feel really naive and inexperienced, and I need to figure out how this stuff works. And that's what prompted me to leave education and kind of go cold turkey in the world of finance and the, the feeling of being on an island alone, like, I'm not the only person that doesn't understand this.
00;01;24;16 - 00;01;31;02
Brad Cunningham
I quickly observe that, oh, crap, there's pretty much everyone I know is on this same island, and like, this place is really crowded.
00;01;31;03 - 00;01;33;18
Danielle Hayden
It is a very big island. It's very populated.
00;01;33;20 - 00;01;55;20
Brad Cunningham
So that provided, I guess, some motivation. Like, if I can just understand content and I can, I can very easily teach people, that comes natural to me to teach concepts. So it's just like I have a new level of content I have to learn. And then once I felt like I can get my arms around it, could I go share this with other people now and learn for myself, but then share with others?
00;01;55;24 - 00;02;18;24
Brad Cunningham
And where I thought getting into it, you know, I was like, I got to learn all these strategies and maneuver to finance and managing investments and dealing with insurance and all that stuff. What I quickly figured out is there's a lot, a lot more to this. There's a lot, I would say a much deeper issue going on in finance.
00;02;18;24 - 00;02;25;02
Brad Cunningham
And that's what got me more into the psychology of behavioral observations of, of human behavior with money.
00;02;25;04 - 00;02;49;29
Danielle Hayden
Yeah. Similar background for me. It was I thought decision making as a business owner was black and white. As a CFO, I presented data and as the, you know, the CEO, the business that, investors, private equity firm, right? They took the data and made pretty black and white decisions. It's very different when you're working with entrepreneurs and their money and their money mindset.
00;02;49;29 - 00;02;52;06
Danielle Hayden
And this baby that they created.
00;02;52;09 - 00;02;55;07
Brad Cunningham
Yeah, it’s definitely their baby. Yeah. Yeah.
00;02;55;10 - 00;03;19;03
Danielle Hayden
You know, before we hit record, we were saying for a lot of our clients it's, you know, it's really interesting how many of our clients won't want to actually jump on a call with us to review their financial statements and their Snapshot. And I think that we have a really incredible group of women who work here. They're kind, thoughtful, very friendly, smile a lot.
00;03;19;06 - 00;03;29;24
Danielle Hayden
They're like cheerleaders and not intimidating. Yeah. And we still can't get people on a call. So talk to me a little bit about the psychology and what you're finding with your clients.
00;03;29;27 - 00;03;51;03
Brad Cunningham
I think there's a, you probably see the same thing, there's a level, certainly a level of vulnerability, right? Being willing to be transparent to, admit that maybe I made a mistake here or that I don't understand something here. Although, from my work, I've observed there's more of a hang up with men in that space than there's women.
00;03;51;06 - 00;04;15;06
Brad Cunningham
Interesting. I don’t know if you've seen that with the work that you do and the clientele that you have. But from my observation, and I'm generalizing, of course, women tend to be more accepting and willing to admit that I don't know how this works, and they seem more willing to desire for education and guidance to better understand things.
00;04;15;09 - 00;04;43;02
Brad Cunningham
Men, they, it's probably partially due to, like, societal views of men historically must be good with this stuff. And so, I think there's more pressure on men to share their vulnerability, and to be willing to want to learn. But I think in general, I don't mean to go off on a tangent about the male and female comparisons, but I think it's tough for people to still admit that I don't understand how this works.
00;04;43;02 - 00;05;00;27
Brad Cunningham
And I have to admit that I need some help. And that might be to, you know, like you talked about, the percentage of booking calls and people that come in and, you know, the resources and the services that you provide. And we're accepting and we're not judgmental and here to help. But I still think it's tough for people to, to get past it.
00;05;00;29 - 00;05;14;01
Danielle Hayden
How does this impact the way people are investing? Because you're working with them as their financial advisor. So how does that end up impacting overall wealth and how they invest?
00;05;14;03 - 00;05;35;13
Brad Cunningham
That's a good question. I, I have observed over the years that most folks want to put the cart before the horse. Investing is sexy. It's fun. Everyone likes to talk about investing on every talk show, radio, advertisement, social media. I mean, everything about if you just do this to invest, people want to jump into that right out of the gate.
00;05;35;15 - 00;06;00;07
Brad Cunningham
And I think that that could cause some problems down the road. So putting the cart before the horse, let's invest. Let's talk about investing. Max out my RA, do my 401(k), set up my brokerage account, whatever it might be. But if I don't have a good sense of my foundation underneath me regarding my finances and understanding my inflows and outflows, and what am I saving towards future obligation and how am I managing my debt obligations?
00;06;00;10 - 00;06;25;08
Brad Cunningham
How am I communicating my money in my household with a partner or spouse? How am I modeling that behavior with my kids if I have them? I mean, like, and that’s why the psychology and behavior comes into it. So, you know, in the in the US, I think the the latest data that I saw, the average savings rate in this country is 4.4% of personal household savings rate, meaning I'm saving 4.4% of what I'm making for retirement or kids education or what, whatever it might be.
00;06;25;10 - 00;06;28;14
Danielle Hayden
And that's not including like general savings, right?
00;06;28;16 - 00;06;52;09
Brad Cunningham
This is just as a percentage of income coming in, like so, you know, I make $100,000 a year, I'm saving $4,400 towards my future. Right? And I'm sorry but that is just not going to get it done. It's not even going to come close. And so you can find the best investments out there that are getting the best yields or rates of return;
00;06;52;11 - 00;07;08;21
Brad Cunningham
if your savings rate is going to hold at 4.4 consistently, I don't care what your rate of return is and that investment, it's not going to make, you're not going to make it. You're not going to hit the targets, the goals or the vision or plans that you have for whatever are quote unquote, retirement or other future obligation is.
00;07;08;23 - 00;07;30;09
Brad Cunningham
And I go back to, I think it's important, we need to go back and identify why is our savings rate 4.4? What do we do on a, on a daily basis where our, our spending habits and behaviors, what are we pushing money towards? Why aren't we able to save more? I mean, I know why we aren't. I know why society still doesn't.
00;07;30;12 - 00;07;32;28
Danielle Hayden
Tell me why. What do you do?
00;07;33;00 - 00;07;49;09
Brad Cunningham
We're an issue gratification society. I mean, we're tied to budget. I mean, you work with numbers all the time, right? In personal finance, I usually throw people on on a bit of a curveball right when I meet them, I'm like, by the way, we're not having a budget. And they're like, oh, what did you just say?
00;07;49;09 - 00;08;05;20
Brad Cunningham
We're not going to budget. I'm like, we're going to prioritize cash flow, but we are not going to budget. And what I, what I see most people do from a budgeting perspective, it is a, hey, we're often referred to it as a reverse tracking mechanism to go back and reconcile, to show us that we all suck at budgeting.
00;08;05;23 - 00;08;21;26
Brad Cunningham
And it it's all exercise, right? You know, so it's like I did this years ago where, okay, I'm going to spend this much at the grocery store, our budget for Target, $100 a month, you know, yada, yada, yada. And then at the end of the month, I'm going back and I'm reconciling. I'm like, we spent $158 at Target.
00;08;21;26 - 00;08;42;21
Brad Cunningham
I thought the budget was $100, right? And so what are we doing wrong? And while we my experience was, well, we just need to lock down and be tighter about what we're doing and stick to our guns on this. And every month, inevitably, it didn't work. And so I pulled out my hair obviously a long time ago with this, being frustrated.
00;08;42;21 - 00;09;07;09
Brad Cunningham
But for me, many years ago, I was like, I gotta figure out how to do this a different way. So I think a lot of the 4.4, the lagging 4.4%, then we're not good compared to a lot of other nations is we want what we want. We want it now. We try to budget and track things. People use these applications on their phones now to track every nickel and dime.
00;09;07;09 - 00;09;24;10
Brad Cunningham
I don't want to micromanage that stuff. I don't think it's necessary either, if you're doing this right. So I just think our priorities are a little out of whack. Like, go get what you want. Spend. Now, you know, I'm going to save whatever's remaining like I'm supposed to have this amount of money left over each month. Sometimes it gets saved, sometimes it doesn't, you know, and I just,
00;09;24;10 - 00;09;40;03
Brad Cunningham
I've set up a lifestyle that is probably now---probably it is---it's too big. It's more than I can handle based on the income that's been generated in my household. And so that that, I think, is where the opportunity for most change can happen is if I-
00;09;40;10 - 00;09;56;17
Danielle Hayden
So yeah, what do we do? Like what, what do we change if that's happening. Because I agree with you. We're setting up businesses. We're setting up lives that we can actually maintain. So what we need to come out of our business to actually to fund our personal lives, we're not able to hit those numbers. So what do we do to change?
00;09;56;17 - 00;10;16;17
Brad Cunningham
Because it's a horrible stress to, by the way, just that's the classic outearn the problem, right? Like I should I build a lifestyle based on whatever I want to have. And then a lot of I think this happens with a lot of entrepreneurs and business owners is I'm not hitting my targets on the personal side. So let me just go outearn the problem.
00;10;16;21 - 00;10;25;26
Brad Cunningham
Right? I'll just go generate, make more. But then I go make more and then I end up stepping up my problem or the lifestyle. And it's just a vicious really cycle.
00;10;25;28 - 00;10;36;11
Danielle Hayden
Our expenses grow with our revenue. I am shocked at how many clients, you know, you think seven figures of revenue is going to equate in more profit, and often it's less profit.
00;10;36;17 - 00;10;41;20
Brad Cunningham
And more money, more problems, right? I mean, this is the classic rapper sang that in a song decades ago.
00;10;41;20 - 00;10;43;22
Danielle Hayden
I can hear him still singing it.
00;10;43;24 - 00;11;04;27
Brad Cunningham
Right. What do we do? I think the first step in this is going to sound therapeutic, right? Admitting that I don't know how this all works, like admission, that I might not have a lot of this figured out, but I need some assistance. Right? So I need an accountability partner. Admission's first step. Organization, taking a look at everything that's going on is step two. I think education,
00;11;04;27 - 00;11;26;24
Brad Cunningham
step three. And then being willing to have to have that accountability partner. Step four, I what I have observed when you paint a picture of what the targets are, and one of the things we advocate with our clients is what the goal is to say 20% of gross income per year. If I can say 20% consistently year in and year out, I don't need to chase the crazy rates return in the investment world.
00;11;26;24 - 00;11;31;23
Brad Cunningham
I can, I can be very strategic and deliberate on what I'm investing and how I’m diversifying assets, right?
00;11;31;25 - 00;11;44;00
Danielle Hayden
Can I ask a clarifying question before you keep going? Please! Which is the 20% for a business owner? Are we talking 20% of gross sales or 20% of the business owner salary distribution?
00;11;44;01 - 00;12;02;07
Brad Cunningham
Great question. Business owner salary or revenue distributions. Yeah, great question. On the business side, essentially what happens is the business which is a separate entity, but it's all part of one big circle, right? So you've got the business owner, they’re like my business of generating X of what I'm taking out, whether it's salary and distributions at year-end.
00;12;02;09 - 00;12;09;03
Brad Cunningham
I then translate that into personal wealth. Okay, great. You just pulled in two, three, four or whatever the amount of money is. We gotta save 20% of that,
00;12;09;05 - 00;12;28;13
Danielle Hayden
that number. You mentioned accountability partner and organization. So I just want to, I want to paint this picture for you and see if you agree with it. So I've always said we need four people on our money team. And the first person is our bookkeeper. Right. So they're the person keeping everything organized. You as a business owner, you're not going to do it.
00;12;28;13 - 00;12;29;25
Danielle Hayden
It's rare.
00;12;29;29 - 00;12;32;26
Brad Cunningham
Yeah, it's not their specialty or skill set. Right.
00;12;32;28 - 00;12;48;14
Danielle Hayden
And it's not the best use of your time. So we have to have a bookkeeper. They're the person keeping everything organized. Then we have our tax account and the tax accountant’s position is to file the tax return. Like, that is our number one job is file their tax return. They're not your business consultant. They're not your business coach.
00;12;48;14 - 00;12;52;06
Danielle Hayden
They're not building a budget. Like, don't ask them for anything outside of filing your tax return.
00;12;52;06 - 00;12;57;20
Brad Cunningham
By the way, if I can interject real quick, it's amazing how many people think that that tax accountant is supposed to be their strategic advisor.
00;12;57;22 - 00;12;58;05
Danielle Hayden
Oh yeah.
00;12;58;05 - 00;13;01;24
Brad Cunningham
And it's rare to find anybody in that space that actually does that.
00;13;01;27 - 00;13;19;09
Danielle Hayden
Yeah I mean, I don't know why we correlate the two. However, your tax account-I sat for my CPA. I'll tell you what we learned as a CPA is how to file a tax return. That’s right. We didn’t learn the business stuff. Okay, and then the third member is either a coach or a CFO, but somebody who can help you,
00;13;19;12 - 00;13;36;25
Danielle Hayden
you know, plan for the future, bring together your personal and your business goals, and then a financial advisor. And that's where you come in to help them. How are you pulling in all of those pieces of the other members of the money team to help that business owner find success?
00;13;36;28 - 00;13;55;07
Brad Cunningham
And is that the question, like, how are we doing that? Yeah. There's a lot of FAs in my industry that will promote that they're doing that, but very few actually do. Yeah. I mean, it is, it is a, not a partnership, but it is a collective team, right? You need to have all pieces of the puzzle that fit together and work concurrently,
00;13;55;08 - 00;14;16;22
Brad Cunningham
right? So why would you not have overlap within the bookkeeper, tax professional, and like you said, a coach slash CFO. For us, I mean, we just paint the picture at the beginning of a relationship where we engage with someone that we want to be involved. We want other members of the team to be involved. We are experts at certain things, but we are by no means experts at everything.
00;14;16;22 - 00;14;38;21
Brad Cunningham
You know, I'm not a jack-of-all-trades, right? So, you know, for me, as a business owner, my job on a daily basis is I literally sit on either Zoom calls or in-person meetings, and I respond to emails. I don't do anything else, right? Other than interacting with my clients and exchanging emails. Everything else that is either stuff that I don't want to do or I probably shouldn't be doing.
00;14;38;21 - 00;15;02;18
Brad Cunningham
It's outsourced to various either assistants or experts that do what they do. As a as an entrepreneur, for any entrepreneur, right, and I know I'm preaching to the choir here with you, but what, why would you not outsource and integrate team members and then have those team members collaborate with each other? Now, some of our clients are really good with seeing the value of doing that, and others prefer to maintain the relationships independent.
00;15;02;24 - 00;15;06;05
Brad Cunningham
I don't think that's the best way, but at the end of the day, the client gets to make the call on that, right?
00;15;06;07 - 00;15;31;02
Danielle Hayden
Yeah. I just recorded a podcast episode this morning about tax strategies for a year-end, and so I thought this would be fun to talk through these. So tax accountant comes in and says, hey business owner you got to go max everything out. You know, as a tax strategy, maximize your HSA, 401(k), IRA, your 529 plan.
00;15;31;05 - 00;15;56;01
Danielle Hayden
But when I'm listening to you talk, there's maybe a little bit more psychology that we need to dig into because are we just making those decisions in a narrow mind? Like, hey, I just need to make sure I'm paying as little in taxes as possible. And so I go take all this cash from my business and from my personal accounts, and I go fund all of all of these, these strategies for tax savings without really understanding my impact?
00;15;56;01 - 00;15;58;03
Danielle Hayden
So talk to me from the other the other side of that.
00;15;58;03 - 00;16;14;11
Brad Cunningham
For this year, right? I mean, we live in this year. And so I see what I'm supposed to pay in taxes or I get an estimate, I want to pay in taxes from paying my estimates as a business owner and I don't want to owe, right? Like, it's amazing how many people I run into, like, I just don't want to owe anything.
00;16;14;11 - 00;16;32;06
Brad Cunningham
I'm like, okay, slow down. Like, we don't want to give a lot of interest back to the government to get this big refund. Let's, let's think about this. So the tax strategy in a given year, which is where the accountant can certainly come into play and help with that, but we also want to be strategic for 30 years down the road.
00;16;32;06 - 00;16;48;24
Brad Cunningham
I mean, if I’m maxing out my HSA, great. If I've got-I'm a big fan of the HSA, I've got five kids, I've got exposure all over the place. Like, I want to take advantage of that, that great tax benefit. So I'm by default gonna do that every year. Maxing out 401(k)s, IRAs, 529s?
00;16;48;24 - 00;17;11;11
Brad Cunningham
I mean, it's so situational. I mean, I can tell one person-I'll give you an example. I was talking to a school teacher the other day, and she's in the state of Ohio, is a public school teacher. She has a pension, 14% of our income goes into a pension. The district's adding to it like that pension is the big dog for their retirement for the household, right?
00;17;11;11 - 00;17;28;27
Brad Cunningham
Probably represents 70% of everything they're going to have for retirement. Well, she's like, well the guy’s coming in and trying to get me to put money in the 403(b) and max the 403(b). I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, 403(b)s are fine, but when you time into a big dog pension like your teacher’s pension, you don't need any more pretax money.
00;17;28;27 - 00;17;54;10
Brad Cunningham
Like, we got to look at other things to diversify you from a tax standpoint. So when you roll into retirement and this pension is coming out, paying you X percent of your final salary, I don't need additional pretax money in the 403(b) when I take money out of that; it's also gonna reporter as earned income. We got to think strategically about this. Where I could tell the next person I talked to the exact opposite, because it's so situational based on what current tax bracket they fall in, what other assets they have,
00;17;54;10 - 00;18;19;17
Brad Cunningham
and I can't put all my eggs in one basket from a tax perspective. And I, I don't see it as much as I used to. I mean, I used to see people going in, like look at my 401(k). I’m so proud it’s seven figures. And I'm like, yeah, that's like 93% of your total retirement. Like you're going to feel this hurt and you're going to be left with a lot less options in retirement because so much is in just one bucket.
00;18;19;19 - 00;18;40;09
Brad Cunningham
You also mentioned the 529. 529 gets so heavily marketed. And the 529 is a great vehicle, but it's not the only vehicle to save for my kids education. One of the things we started doing a couple of years ago is we wanted to back up and talk about what we refer to as creating a launch plan for your kid, you know?
00;18;40;09 - 00;18;55;14
Brad Cunningham
So what's a launch plan? Well, what are the pathways as a parent that I'm comfortable with my kid taking? Well, they got to go to college. Well, what happens if they go to community college? You go with that. They go to trade school. Or what happens if they say Mom or Dad, I want to take a gap year, or I want to get into business right out of high school, or I want to go into the workforce?
00;18;55;14 - 00;19;14;14
Brad Cunningham
And they're like, yeah, I'm not good with a gap year. I'm like, are you cool with all the others? And they're like, yeah, I'm cool with all the other. So are you, is your funding that you're going to allocate towards your kid going post-high school into the next phase of life? Does that money that you saved up apply to all these pathways because, you know the 529 we can't use if
00;19;14;16 - 00;19;26;27
Brad Cunningham
the kid goes into business or wants to go into the workforce, or let's say we've got money left over because they went to trade school or significantly less than traditional college pathways. Were you going to give that money to them? Or are you not going to give that money, like there are so-
00;19;26;29 - 00;19;30;07
Danielle Hayden
And we can roll those dollars into an IRA. And we can.
00;19;30;09 - 00;19;36;02
Brad Cunningham
We can, right? And so it's nice that the 529’s become more flexible for pushing money into the Roth.
00;19;36;05 - 00;19;55;00
Danielle Hayden
But-Because for a long time I didn't want to do the 529. I didn’t either. I mean, it was so rigid. I know the future---well, I don't know---I have a good guess of the future for my son and so I for a long time I didn't want to push to that, that path. So I think that it has opened up
00;19;55;02 - 00;19;56;25
Danielle Hayden
as a lot longer term strategy.
00;19;56;25 - 00;20;17;16
Brad Cunningham
It has. I appreciate that it has become more flexible in the last few years. But when I, when I had these discussions about launch plans, you know, I want people to think through what, what is this going to look like for you and how do you communicate this effectively to your children before it's senior year and they're getting their offers back from schools that they apply to?
00;20;17;18 - 00;20;36;06
Brad Cunningham
And I've just seen too many people, Danielle, that come in and they're like, well, she got into her dream school. We didn't think she'd get into UVA because out of state the only take 6%. The cost of UVA is X. And then the classic comment is we're just going to have to figure this out. I'm like, we're going to have to figure this out is not a game plan, like that
00;20;36;06 - 00;21;03;03
Brad Cunningham
is not a strategic plan moving forward. So, you know, you reference HSAs, 401(k)s, these are all registrations of accounts that have every account has a pro and con and but how each account registration is not, in my opinion, so black and white. It's really grey and contingent on the specific individual or household you're working with. You have to figure out how to use these tools to be as efficient as possible for that individual or household.
00;21;03;08 - 00;21;06;21
Brad Cunningham
It can't just be like, everyone does this and nobody does that.
00;21;06;24 - 00;21;15;02
Danielle Hayden
Yeah. Instagram knows what I do for a living, and so it serves me up a lot of tax influencers. (That is a thing).
00;21;15;05 - 00;21;22;12
Brad Cunningham
I'm aware. I'm aware. Clients have brought that up, like I was watching TikTok last night and I'm like, okay.
00;21;22;14 - 00;21;25;01
Danielle Hayden
Yeah, tell me about it.
00;21;25;03 - 00;21;27;09
Brad Cunningham
What's TikTok telling you to do today?
00;21;27;12 - 00;21;50;06
Danielle Hayden
So I just want to invite, as people are hearing this information from Instagram, from TikTok to use your money team so that they can help you apply it to your specific situation. They want to hear from you. They want to help you apply it. It's not that they're ignoring these options. They're already thinking through them. And so bring that forward so you can hear from your money team and their approach to these these situations.
00;21;50;08 - 00;21;50;26
Brad Cunningham
Yep.
00;21;50;28 - 00;22;06;21
Danielle Hayden
All right, what have I not asked you that if you could speak to every business owner around the psychology of money and how they're approaching investing, how they're approaching money, you know, what would be your overarching advice or comment to them?
00;22;06;23 - 00;22;27;06
Brad Cunningham
If you haven't built, as you refer to your money team, that's critical. Building the money team is showing your ability to be proactive, right? And I think you need to be proactive. I mean, there are certain, certain things in finance as well as in life where it's a reactive component. But, gosh, there's a lot of things you can do proactively in finance.
00;22;27;06 - 00;22;52;14
Brad Cunningham
And I find that when you are proactive in seeking guidance from your money team and utilizing the resources that are available to you, that the stress and the anxiety of money tends to dissipate or is reduced significantly. I would go back to, I would break it down into two phases. You know, the phase two, which is that sexy part of, of finance for investing, which is really fun to do and people enjoy it.
00;22;52;16 - 00;23;18;28
Brad Cunningham
But probably the biggest slip up I see is people get past phase one, right? And phase one is they go back and I'm on repeat a little bit, but, you know, setting certain boundaries, setting certain targets. You know, we get a lot of research to come up with that 20% target toward saving for future planning, and that includes, you know, what are you putting money into 401(k)s, IRAs, Roth, HSAs, 529s, brokerage accounts, that all counts towards that 20% target.
00;23;19;00 - 00;23;36;28
Brad Cunningham
But setting those boundaries and targets and working to achieve them. You know, we collectively as a country, need to raise our personal household savings rate. I'm not sure how great that is for the bigger economy. I'm more concerned about my personal economy than I am the bigger economy. So I can go off on a tangent on that in a second.
00;23;37;01 - 00;23;55;27
Brad Cunningham
But the secret to successful finances are in phase one. It's all found in systematic savings discipline, keeping your debt ratios under a certain percentage, not buying a house that's too big, not buying the car because you can't afford it. You know, not putting the pool in before you can't afford it. You know, we just we want to do so many things.
00;23;55;27 - 00;24;15;07
Brad Cunningham
And I think we just tend to, we leapfrog into doing these things before we really think about, can I afford it or not? And it's once again, I said, it's the gratification, it's keeping up with the Joneses, it's materialism. You're making other people very wealthy. Good job. I want to make sure that I'm wealthy as well. So I can ramble about this.
00;24;15;07 - 00;24;19;01
Brad Cunningham
I get pretty passionate about this, Danielle. So I'll pause for a second.
00;24;19;01 - 00;24;44;19
Danielle Hayden
I'm right there with you. I always say, it is beautiful marketing by Target and Amazon to create a whole economy of people who think it's funny to have a package show up at their house every day. And, you know, it's become funny, and so, it's great marketing for companies like Amazon. So I play the 48-hour rule. So that's my, that's my game.
00;24;44;21 - 00;25;01;18
Danielle Hayden
So if I want something, I can have the dopamine hit of adding it to the cart. I have to close the browser and wait 48 hours before I'm actually allowed to purchase it. And I'm allowed to come back in 48 hours. And if I really want that purchase, like if I actually need it, I can make that purchase at that point, It’s a smart move.
00;25;01;20 - 00;25;22;28
Brad Cunningham
I like it. And by the way, I don't, when I say all these things about living within our means and setting boundaries, I love things too. I, I love packages that show up in the door. I want to do things. I want to take great vacations and live in a nice house. Right? So we will often discuss the difference of kind of a scarcity mindset and to trying to shift into more of an abundance mentality.
00;25;23;00 - 00;25;40;10
Brad Cunningham
And I, I pay for things that I never thought I would buy now, but I am totally comfortable in doing that because I know all my other checkmarks have been checked. Right? Like, my, do I have a giving plan set up to help others that are less fortunate, and like, am I well protected against life catastrophic events?
00;25;40;10 - 00;26;00;05
Brad Cunningham
Am I saving when I'm supposed to save? Am I taking care of my debt obligations? And then whatever's left over, I can just spend on what I want; only catch is if I fail on one of those previous components, then I have to come back in and either readjust or check and see what I'm doing that that is causing me to fall off the, the track.
00;26;00;07 - 00;26;01;11
Brad Cunningham
So yeah.
00;26;01;13 - 00;26;20;15
Danielle Hayden
I know that you are not a big fan of the budgeting tool, but I wanted to, I I'm going tie it to one of the things that we, we use with our clients in our CFO services. We---I just want to highlight the commonality here. Yeah. We practice the ability to for, as business owners, let's set that ten year goal first.
00;26;20;18 - 00;26;44;07
Danielle Hayden
So our first few calls with our CFO clients, we are setting a ten year goal, a three year goal, doing a complete SWOT analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. Yes, you need accurate bookkeeping to file taxes or apply for that loan, but honestly, that's not the real reason. The real reason is because bad bookkeeping, it's hiding all of your problems.
00;26;44;07 - 00;27;16;06
Danielle Hayden
At Kickstart Accounting, we've seen it all: doubled income, missing expenses, and air quote, healthy looking QuickBooks dashboards that are just masking financial chaos. QuickBooks and AI tools, they won't tell you when your data is wrong, they just make it look pretty. And that's why we created the Check Your Books service. Our team of real human experts run a 25-point accuracy review of your QuickBooks, checking every transaction, every reconciliation, and every balance sheet line.
00;27;16;06 - 00;27;45;03
Danielle Hayden
Then we record a personalized video walkthrough so you know exactly what's right, what's wrong, and how healthy your books really are. There’s no more guessing, no more pretending everything's fine. It's human to human, walking you through the truth about your business. If you're ready for this, go to KickstartAccountingInc.com/CheckYourBooks. We'll get started today so that you can step into your role as CEO with confidence.
00;27;45;05 - 00;28;04;06
Danielle Hayden
And then from all that information, we are creating the budget. And I know that a budget can feel like we're putting parameters around spending, and we're just going to overspend around it, but I think for some people it gives them the opportunity to spend. Like hey, I actually do have some dollars to invest in in training this year. I should probably go to a conference.
00;28;04;06 - 00;28;27;26
Danielle Hayden
It's been a few years, and for other people it might be all right, look, I attended three conferences last year. Dial it back and only put one in the budget this year and actually stick to that. And I think the piece that you were just saying was, if we could, as business owners, take that time to actually look at where we did spend this month compared to where we thought we would spend and do something about it.
00;28;27;26 - 00;28;47;23
Danielle Hayden
Right? So if I didn't make as much revenue as I thought I would, well then I have to reforecast. I have to cut down my spending in areas. I have to ask myself why this is happening before I can continue to spend as a business owner, because I want business owners to see their business as an opportunity to fuel them as a whole person.
00;28;47;25 - 00;28;56;13
Danielle Hayden
We have to have a retirement outside of selling our business, right? We need to have investments outside of our business. And so I think that these tools give us an opportunity to do that.
00;28;56;20 - 00;29;27;09
Brad Cunningham
Yeah, I'm glad you I'm glad you shared that. Well, while I kind of pooh pooh budgeting, traditional budgeting, right? My reverse tracking mechanism, budgeting that people will often do, I am a hawk on every number that is going on within my business. Right? And how that translates into personal and I break it all down by categories. And I know every month where the numbers are, and I think that's what you are speaking to for us to be able to look and see what the inflows and outflows and what we're directing towards certain expenses and not, and then looking at trending behavior.
00;29;27;11 - 00;29;34;06
Brad Cunningham
The data to me is fascinating and I want to know that data. Forgive me for shooting down the traditional budgeting.
00;29;34;08 - 00;29;56;29
Danielle Hayden
But when you have a traditional budget like a for a personal budget, I'm with you on that. But for a business tool. As a business tool, I would agree. Yeah. I want them to know the difference between that. Here's what I think that we can leave listeners with is I think that people can hear how much similarities there are here. And if you can find a money team that can work together---
00;29;57;04 - 00;30;21;25
Danielle Hayden
So I just want to encourage people to find a money team who your financial advisor can have a conversation with your CPA, your CPA and your bookkeeper can have a conversation with one another. We're all here to support you, and there's a lot of commonality that Brad and I have here and the way that we want to support business owners. And so, find that money team that can support you, that way you don't feel so alone in entrepreneurship.
00;30;21;28 - 00;30;44;22
Brad Cunningham
You're absolutely right. It's critical. I mean, I even reflect on my own business, you know, that's been around for 20 plus years and the successes that we've had and pitfalls and mistakes that you make along the way because it's never perfect. And then either, look, like you talk about SWOT analysis, how important it is to do that. I mean, I look at it probably a list of opportunities in my business that I should be taking advantage of.
00;30;44;22 - 00;31;06;22
Brad Cunningham
And what is, the cobbler's kids go without shoes sometimes, right? Like the classic phrase. Yeah. And I'm like, there are things I totally need to be doing that I'm not doing, and why am I not doing those things, right? And do I have the right partners holding me accountable, knowing what my opportunities are, my sharing those goals with those resources and those team members?
00;31;06;25 - 00;31;32;04
Brad Cunningham
Because once you kind of put it out in the air, then you've got people to hold you accountable. Then it’s real. You can’t really make excuses. Right? So, I think your summary is, is spot on. You know, there are a ton of great resources out there. Sometimes entrepreneurs may not know that these resources even exist, or if they do find them, I think you're talking about what percentage of the time are they actually reaching out to say, let's get to work on this?
00;31;32;04 - 00;31;32;25
Brad Cunningham
So.
00;31;32;27 - 00;31;40;01
Danielle Hayden
Yeah, reach out and say, let's get to work. How can listeners find you? Do you work with clients outside of the state of Ohio?
00;31;40;03 - 00;31;46;16
Brad Cunningham
I do, I do. It's all over the world, learning about cultures and languages. This is fascinating.
00;31;46;18 - 00;31;47;18
Danielle Hayden
That’s amazing.
00;31;47;20 - 00;32;05;22
Brad Cunningham
Well, so I don't do any marketing. People give me a hard time about this all the time. I do have a website, which is---maybe I should do more---it's just go, it's GoOrangeFinancial.com. GoOrangeFinancial.com. It's a pretty basic website, so don't get too excited about it, if anyone actually goes to it, but it does have contact information.
00;32;05;22 - 00;32;07;09
Brad Cunningham
There's a way to get ahold of us.
00;32;07;11 - 00;32;26;28
Danielle Hayden
Okay, well, we'll do this if anyone's interested in learning more about Brad and how you support, you can go to that website. And you can also email your Kickstart Accounting team. We will have you on our community directory so we can give you a specific introduction directly to you and your team. Thanks Danielle! Thank you for being here.
00;32;27;00 - 00;33;27;27
Danielle Hayden
I hope you enjoyed today's episode of Business by The Books. Don't forget to hit like and subscribe! This is the number one way we can help other entrepreneurs find this podcast, because here at Kickstart Accounting, Inc., it is our mission to help entrepreneurs understand their numbers, get access to this information, and grow and thrive in their business. So please help me, help other entrepreneurs understand their numbers so they can finally grow and thrive.