Military Mom & Money. Sandra Beck

Bob: [00:01:00] Welcome to another episode of Money You Should Ask. I’m your host, Bob Wheeler. And in this episode, we’re going to explore, question, examine, converse, dig deep, expose, laugh and cry about the money beliefs, money blocks, and life challenges of our next guest. Turn up the volume, listen, learn and laugh.

[00:00:24] Welcome to week two of March money mindset. We want to stay conscious and intentional in our financial decision making throughout the month of March and beyond. To help record your money journal and financial decision-making, we are giving away two free journals each day this week. Go to themoneynerve.com  /freshstart2021 to enter to win your free journal today. Come back next week for week three of March Money Mindset for more giveaways.

[00:00:59] Our [00:01:00] next guest is Sandra Beck. I am so excited to have Sandra here. She is an author, coach, speaker, radio, host, entrepreneur, and philanthrop…  phill… philanthropist… oh, you know, it’s those big words that if there were more than two syllables, they get me every time, who is as successful  as she is busy. The single mother of two has created a virtual empire of successful companies, entirely staffed, managed, and implemented by using a host of virtual assistants and online resources. Whether she’s coaching a company owner or to a million dollar commission goal training, a stay at home mom to perform SEO on websites or speaking to a group of women who are in recovery her message is about empowerment. What is possible and how to create the circumstances of your choosing. Sandra teaches her clients how to maximize their lives by using the power of the internet, coupled with the drive of their passions, to create the lifestyle of their dreams. She is the president and author of [00:02:00] motherhood, Inc.

[00:02:01] Author of Blogphoria and is a powerful voice in the social media arena. As a popular internet brand strategist. She also hosts two radio shows, Military Mom Talk Radio and Motherhood Talk Radio.

[00:02:14] Sandra, we can, we have a book that has all of your credentials. How are you doing?

[00:02:19] Sandra: [00:02:19] Oh, every time I listened to that intro, I think, Oh my gosh, I’m so tired.

[00:02:26] Bob: [00:02:26] Well, you know, um, one of the, you know, you talk about how to, how to maximize and how to figure out how to create the circumstance of your choosing. Like a lot of people are like, no, no, no, it happened to me. Right. Something happened to me, but you’re helping people say, wait a minute. Let’s find the silver lining or how does that work?

[00:02:45] Sandra: [00:02:45] You know, I’ll just give you a, a quick background of where I figured this out. Um, I had two little babies, a three month old and a two and a half year old in Southern California in Los Angeles had a big fat overhead financially. And one day my [00:03:00] ex-husband got up, walked out and said, I’m done. I don’t want to be married.

[00:03:03] I don’t want to be part of this and all of the financial responsibility as well as the childcare. Fell on me. And so I had a good week where I felt sorry for myself, you know, cried every day. And then I thought to myself, like there is no other choice. And, you know, I guess I could have gone home, you know, to my parents in New York, you know, it was a 40 something, not a good look.

[00:03:27] Um, but I had to figure something out quickly. And what I realized is when you, when something gets thrown at you in life, whatever it is, it could be cancer. It could be, you know, a car accident or, um, a foreclosure, something like that. You have to move quickly from what I call A to B to C. So you, you look at the problem and you have to move immediately to the solution.

[00:03:53] And then immediately to action plans. What you can’t do is stay stuck and go what I call the, [00:04:00] Oh, why me? Why did this happen? Why did he leave me? Why, why, why? You know what Bob, who cares about why I have mouths to feed, I’ve got a mortgage to pay. So why was kind of shoved to every Thursday at 5:00 PM where I would meet with my therapist.

[00:04:16] And so I would just put all those whys, all those feelings and everything in a box and unpack it Thursdays at five, pack it back up Thursdays at six, when my session was over and I got immediately to the problem solving and then action plans. And I just want to share with you one really great, funny story for anybody who has little kids.

[00:04:37] I was up with one of my kids at night with an earache. And we were watching TV in the middle of the night cartoon characters. This Lego movie comes on and Ninjago and this little Lego fingering comes out and he bows to the TV screen and he says, what can you do today to get you to where you want to be?

[00:04:57] And I was. In my bed with my kids going, Oh, [00:05:00] message for me, no, I got up, I wrote it down on a post-it, which I still have up on my wall today. And I just focused on what I could do today. I didn’t think about the future. I didn’t think about college. I didn’t think about diapers. I didn’t think about what I had to pay at the end of the week.

[00:05:17] I focused on only what I could do today. And that was moving from A to B to C.

[00:05:23] Bob: [00:05:23] Yeah. That’s awesome. And do you think. I’m going to take my glasses off. Do you think that, um, if you hadn’t had two small kids, you wouldn’t have had as much of an immediacy to, uh, act

[00:05:36]Sandra: [00:05:36] Oh, absolutely. That those were like two little guns to my head. Yeah. You know, they were a no fail, no excuses. You better get to work. If it was just me, Bob, I probably. They’ll be drinking on the beach. Like just my marriage is over, you know, 10, 12 years later, you know, you hear people do that. They’re like, Oh, you know, I [00:06:00] was in the grand Canyon shortly after my marriage ended.

[00:06:03] And I took a walk with my two kids and a double stroller, and I decided to walk the grand Canyon rim just because I thought it would give me perspective of like, what’s, what’s really big here. And. I, I pulled the, the card over, you know, the stroller over and I was sitting on this bench and this bus of divorceespoured out.

[00:06:24] And two ladies sat on the bench next to me and they’re like, that’s son of a gun. I can’t believe. And she’s like, Oh, he cheated on me, blah, blah, blah. So of course I’m a big eaves drooper and I leaned over and said, can I ask you how long you’ve been divorced? Well, one of them had been divorced 15 years, Bob. Wow. I vowed myself at the grand Canyon sitting on the edge, not jumping in, just enjoying the view of I’m not going to be that person.

[00:06:48] I’m not going to be 15 years later. Now, 15 years later, I’m talking about divorce, but, but in a positive uplifting how to move on way. But I promised myself at that point, I would not be that [00:07:00] person. Yeah.

[00:07:01] Bob: [00:07:01] And I, you know, one of the things that you said at the beginning, I think it’s so important for people to hear is you didn’t worry about the why’s.

[00:07:08] And I think a lot of times we go to therapy and spend years trying to figure out that thing that happened when we were six. It’s good to know about the thing that happened at six, but we also need to live in the present. What, how am I living today? Um, and what can I do. In my current relationships and how can I have a current relationship with my money instead of, Oh, I’m locked in my past.

[00:07:33] Sandra: [00:07:33] Right. And why changes as you get more information as you go through life, you know, why’s changed. So when I look at and I go back, Oh, well, why did my ex-husband leave me? You know? And I could do all these things. It wasn’t a good wife. You know, two kids spent too much, it could, you could have all these jumbled of things and believe me, I had a laundry list of them, but then years later I found out that he had known this personal, you know, [00:08:00] prior.

[00:08:01] And they got back together. So that kind of nullified all my why’s. So, you know, new information comes in and it’s like, Oh, well, if this person, you know, was his friend and they were building this whole relationship, you know, what chance did I have? So all of those why’s that I figured out we’re just blown out of the water and that’s why I think why is there only.

[00:08:23] Valid to either make you feel better mitigate irresponsibility or to kind of give you some peace of mind to move on. But the fact of the matter is why is change when more new information comes in, you get these ahas and it’s like, now you’ve spent like five years on all these ahas that may or may not be true.

[00:08:45] They’re just stories we tell ourselves, unless you ask the person and they will be truthful to you. You’re never going to know the why.

[00:08:52] Bob: [00:08:52] Yeah. No, absolutely. And when you, um, So did you ha you had your parents, [00:09:00] um, that could have jumped in. Do you have a big family? Do you have siblings? Were you an only child?

[00:09:05] Sandra: [00:09:05] No. I have a big family, which, you know, comes with its pros and cons. Yeah. Cause everybody had an idea and you know, I’m the youngest girl in the family. And so like one of my brothers. Blew out, you know, like, Oh my God really just saves them, you know? And I appreciate all these things, but I was a grown ass woman.

[00:09:22] I was 40 years old, you know, it was like, you know, 16 alone and pregnant. And I also have a master’s degree. So, but, but you know, when you’re the younger, in a big family, you’re always going to be the child. Um, that’s yeah. You know, but I did have a lot of help with my family over the years and you know, it, it was a very simple thing where.

[00:09:42] I had to humble myself and learn to ask for help. And so one of the things that I did was like when the new school year would come up, I would say to my brothers and sisters. Okay. When they would say, is there anything you need? I would say, yes, Zach and Max need sneakers. They need gym clothes. They need these [00:10:00] things.

[00:10:00] I was very  specific and telling people how to help me and what I needed. And that was very humbling for me, Bob. I was used to paying my own way in the world and when my dad came in, you know, my one son’s like Dracula mouth. So his, his teeth were 7,000 to get braces and everything fixed. And my dad came in and he said, you know, I will help with that.

[00:10:23] And he paid half. And so, you know, I wasn’t, you know, handout Jane, but I was also, you know, being reasonable with myself, going, okay, this is what I can provide. These things I can’t provide. If my family can help me. And, you know, it was kind of spread out through a bunch of different brothers and sisters and my dad.

[00:10:42] And then one of the things I did to Bob was my mom got diagnosed with cancer and breast cancer, and she ultimately died after a five-year battle. And they were big help to me during that time with childcare where they could. And you know, when my mom was well enough, [00:11:00] but then after my mom passed away, I made the decision just by everybody telling me this was a disastrous idea to move my 80 year old dad into the house.

[00:11:11] So not only have a single mom, two kids, three dogs, one old man, you know, I called it like the five, four, three, two, one factor and five bills. I couldn’t pay for dogs. You know, you can do the math, but the long and short of it is that he helped me with some of the childcare and in return, I cooked and cleaned for him.

[00:11:32] And now he’s 87 and my kids are in their teens. So we’ve been on this like, Eight to 80 Mary ride for about 10 years. And you know, it’s been interesting and it’s been fascinating to have somebody who was raised in the depression era. Yeah. Live in the house of my two lovable spoiled kids. I mean, it’s truly amazing what 80 years difference can do and [00:12:00] especially financial sensibilities.

[00:12:01] Bob: [00:12:01] Yeah, absolutely. And what did your dad teach you about money? And does he talk to your kids about money? Like, how does that go generationally?

[00:12:12] Sandra: [00:12:12] Well, I can tell you, you know, a good example of the, with, with the pandemic last year, when the pandemic was in China and we were getting reports on the news of what was happening and what was coming here.

[00:12:24] No, this knee is no disrespectful. We started calling my grandma, my dad bunker Bob, because he was like, Sam, you used to take me to Sam’s club. There’s going to be, you know, this is going to be terrible. And you know, Bob, I made, the decision of going okay, do I. Stock up on canned goods and sodas and paper products that all these things to alleviate my dad’s anxiety when I really didn’t believe it would be a big deal.

[00:12:50] So that was a big discussion. Finally, I thought to myself, you know what? I have the room in the garage. We’ll use this stuff anyway. What does it hurt? We go to [00:13:00] Sam’s club and Costco and dump $750. That’s like the most I’ve ever seen. Because my dad’s like, you’re going to need toilet paper. You’re going to need paper towels.

[00:13:09] We’re going to get, you know, cleaning things. And, you know, because he had lived through World War II, so he saw things and he could, he kept telling me it feels the same. It feels the same. And in my head I’m like, okay, bunker Bob. Exactly. But we did, we stocked up everything and he even had us. Stock up like cans of like, you know, Tylenol and Advil and, and, you know, things, he’s like, you know, what, if somebody gets sick, you know, we can’t get out and, you know, but I did.

[00:13:37] And you know, my dad was not at all, having an issue with spending that much money to prepare. Now, if we wanted to go out and get a hamburger and it was $30 long ago and I can’t play with $30. Right. But in this prep thing, you know, the kind of the prepper mentality, um, he was all for stocking up and we did Bob.

[00:13:57] I could have housed like [00:14:00] 15 families for all the things that we bought.

[00:14:02] Bob: [00:14:02] You took all the toilet paper

[00:14:07] Sandra: [00:14:07] we’re coming, we’re coming. This was like literally a month or two before. And I actually had to. Some old bookcases out of the garage and retrofitted them so that I had a little pantry and I, every time I’d walk out there, I’m like, this is the dumbest thing. Like, this is ridiculous, but it makes my dad happy.

[00:14:27] So what, but then boom, you know, locked down all of a sudden, you know, we’re sitting pretty and my dad was the hero. So, you know, it was a very interesting ride to go from someone who’s so frugal, you know, we have, I can’t tell you how many glass jars we have in our house. Yeah. You know, we don’t throw anything out.

[00:14:45] We reuse, we reduce, we recycle, you know, so to go and spend $750 on all this stuff was amazing to me, but I’m glad I did.

[00:14:55] Bob: [00:14:55] Yeah. That’s awesome. And do you talk with your children about [00:15:00] money or like, did you talk to them about the stocking up? Do you have conversations with them?

[00:15:05] Sandra: [00:15:05] I had had conversations with my kids about money since they were old enough to something. And we did, we did these things called mommy bucks and you know, I’m a computer person. So I printed out my own money with me on it and it had my face on it. And you know, my one kid was on the $5 bill and the older one was on the $10 bill, which I. No parent should do that because then the $10 worth and the $5, and then the kids fight, you know, just has more value.

[00:15:37] I liked him better. You made him the $10 bill. Um, but we had this kind of fake money thing going on when they were little and they could earn money by. And I had a little chart where if they brushed their teeth, if they made their bed. If they put their clothes in the hamper, you know, all of the things I wanted to teach them, they would earn like, you know, a mommy buck and a mommy buck it [00:16:00] wasn’t a dollar for dollar, but they would say, well, I want to go get a hamburger. Can we get a happy meal or something like that? I would say, okay, that’s 10 mommy bucks. And they would have to go and get their 10 mommy bucks. And it was a great single mom tool because it kept them from asking for too much.

[00:16:19] And I didn’t have to have that like awful conversation. Like, no, we, we, we can’t afford these things. You know, as a parent that’s really hard, but if you set the standard for your kids really little going, okay, everything’s an exchange. You know, you do these things. I do this. If you, if you’re treating me poorly, I’m not going to, you know, I’m not going to treat you poorly, but I’m going to withhold certain things.

[00:16:42] And the other thing I did that I thought worked particularly well, and my kids are 14 and 17 now, and I’ve been a single mom for 16 years. So I think I’m doing some things right. Is that their cell phone was contingent upon their GPA. Okay. If you kept an [00:17:00] A average now, one of my kids had a hard time in geometry and I have a little caveat that, you know, you have to put the benchmark where your kids can matriculate.

[00:17:10] I know my kids could get A’s. But one of them got to B in geometry. And I said, well, why did you get a B? And he’s like, mom, I have a really hard time with it. So that was, you know, I was given kind of a grace period for that, if you did your best, but if you’re not getting your homework done, if you’re not getting things done, boom, that cell phones gone because you know, who gets a $750 cell phone in sixth grade kids do today, they do.

[00:17:34] Bob: [00:17:34] They do. And. I, you know, one of the things that I want to, I’m going to ask this for the listeners, because. If there are single moms out there or single parents or even two house, you know, two parent households, um, that’s a lot of time to educate your children. That’s a lot of time to set up the structure. Um, like it’s just easier to feed him some food and turn on the TV.

[00:17:59] Sandra: [00:17:59] No, [00:18:00] it isn’t, it might be short term. That’s short term thinking, you know, when I had my chore list, there were a lot of my friends who came over and they jokingly called me the mean, mom, they’re like, what do you mean your four-year-old has the laundry?

[00:18:14] You know what? They can start socks. They can, you know, if they can drop it on the floor, they can drop it in a bin. Like, you know, It’s not being mean. It’s, it’s about being, you know, my older one is going to Berkeley. So, you know, something happened the right way with the structure. And I did lean a lot on the Marine Corps, which was my background in training.

[00:18:38] My dad was Navy, so we always had chores and I wasn’t raised with a lot of money. So we always had chores. We always had things to do. But when you give your children’s structure, you also give them the tools. To create self-reliance and confidence. And you can’t make a confident kid, you know, we all talk about like trophies for ninth [00:19:00] place.

[00:19:00] Like, you know, how there’s that wave of everybody who shows up gets a trophy? No, that’s California. Here’s the ribbon for ninth grade. Nice place. Good job kid. Like, no you don’t. Yeah. Trophies for the first three. Maybe you want to give two more ribbons, but you know what, if you suck it, you didn’t show up and you didn’t go to practice.

[00:19:19] You should not get a trophy. And you know, these things did not endear me to my local community sometimes, but the fact is, if you want to grow a confident kid, who’s confident about choices. You’ve got to let them make choices and it has to be consequences to those choices that also applies to money.

[00:19:41] Bob: [00:19:41] Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And you mentioned that the military background, uh, you do a lot of work for the military and yeah. And you work to empower women. Can you say a little bit more about that? I mean, obviously you’re a woman, uh, and you wanna empower and [00:20:00] you’ve been a single mom, but is there something.

[00:20:03] Like that you’re passionate about, or what was the, you know, what was the impetus to say? This is where I want to serve?

[00:20:11] Sandra: [00:20:11] Um, well, it, it started out because I couldn’t pass the medical requirement for the military because of my vision. So that to me was, was kind of a. It stinks because that was one of my plans.

[00:20:22] And I had gone to college on a, on a scholarship to Northwestern. And, uh, what happened was when I couldn’t serve in the capacity that I wanted, one of the EXOS at the university said to me, you know, Sandra, you’re, well-spoken, you’re nice looking. You’re athletic. Maybe you’d like to run our fund runs. Maybe you’d like to help, you know, in this capacity.

[00:20:44] And then they ended up. Sending me to a protocol school. I got to do a lot of neat things and work with the military running there Toys for Tots and doing things outside of the community, but help the military community at large. And in my work there, [00:21:00] I realized, especially now women comprise 20% of our military forces and many women go into the military because they have… their single mom.

[00:21:13] They get an education. They get, you know, their three squares, they get money to send back home to their sisters or parents for raising their children, you know, while they’re serving. And what I realized was that these women were a lot, like me only, I was gifted the power of this world-class education. So that really struck me that something needed to be done.

[00:21:35] And with the first Gulf war and people coming back, um, friends of mines, husbands who were. Struggling. They, you know, were hitting their wives. They choked one of my friends in her sleep, you know, nothing, uh, on purpose, but these things happened. And when they went to get help, To be fair. My friends weren’t big readers.

[00:21:56] They didn’t go to school. So I formed Military [00:22:00] Mom Talk Radio so that we could give medical, social, financial, um, psychological information to people who weren’t readers, because if they went to get help, it was a pamphlet. It was read this article, here’s a printout. That’s not gonna work. So when I realized that the internet was becoming faster. Digital was becoming cheaper, a podcast 16 years ago. People didn’t even know what that was. They thought I was living in my dad’s basement in my underwear.

[00:22:30] Bob: [00:22:30] Right. And for many it is.

[00:22:36] Yeah. No, that’s, that’s awesome. Um, and do you think, um, with the, with the military women, um, Like, there’s a lot of obstacles there. Maybe they’re coming in as a single mom, but what are the obstacles that you see that are more challenging for women? Um, maybe more so than for men, because I’m sure that gender, uh, You know, plays a [00:23:00] role and finances and all those things, just, it just a hunch.

[00:23:03] Sandra: [00:23:03] Sure. Absolutely. I mean, immune tender does play a role, especially, you know, I look at my own experience and it’s reflected through a lot of the conversations I’ve had with our military women. You know, we were always taught that money was the man’s job. You know, it was in polite for women to talk about money.

[00:23:21] And so I always had this kind of aversion to money and I would push it away, you know, people would say, Oh, Sandra you took care of my kids. Let me give you 20 bucks for gas. Let me give you some money for food, you know, since you watched my kid for the afternoon and the polite person in me would say, Oh no, that’s okay.

[00:23:38] Meanwhile, you know, I can’t pay my electric bill right then. Uh, you know, I kind of had a come to Jesus with myself going, why are you pushing money away? You know, because it was considered impolite to accept money. And I’m like, well, but wait a minute, I’m burning to take a gas, driving 10 kids to, and from soccer because their moms work and I’m working from home.

[00:23:58] So why wouldn’t I get [00:24:00] compensated? And yeah. You know, if you don’t have those conversations with yourself and kind of reframe your thinking about your relationship with money, you’re going to get in trouble fast.

[00:24:12] Bob: [00:24:12] Yeah. And do you think that’s, um, that’s more of a socialization to be like, Oh, let me be the nice person. I mean, Um, I know in the Midwest, that’s pretty, uh, you know, you want to be polite. I grew up in the South. You want to be polite instead of realistic.

[00:24:28] Sandra: [00:24:28] Right, right. It’s considered rude. And I can tell you when I had my aha moment of like, I need to accept this money was I had a, I had a minivan and I could pick up a lot of kids from school. For them to the after-school program. So a couple of my friends said, Hey, would you mind picking up my kids? Whatever, I’ll give you $10 a week. Oh, this is great. Blah, blah, blah. So I got to pick up this group of kids, including my own, and I’m going to transport them from the school to the aftercare program.

[00:24:58] And I realized that I [00:25:00] pulled into the store. Cool. My car is on zero, not just zero, zero miles to empty zero. And I’m like, crap. The place is nine miles away. The closest, you know, a gas station is one mile away, but I had no credit card. I had no cash. Like you’re talking stone cold, broke, broke. You know, paid my insurance on the car, but you know, we’re eating oatmeal, eggs and bananas.

[00:25:24] So I’m driving like two miles an hour. And I roll into the gas station on fumes and on my kids look everywhere. And so we came up with like $4 worth of change. Cause they’re like I found a quarter, you know, the seats. And we did, and we got enough gas. And then as I’m pumping the $4 worth of gas, one of the little boys goes, Hey, Ms.

[00:25:47] Sandra here’s $13, like $13. And he’s like, yeah, my mom gave me $20 for lunch today and here’s the rest of it. So I took the $13, you [00:26:00] know, and I, I put it in my tank and. When I drove, the kids, dropped them off. I had to pick up the same group of kids and then bring them to their homes. After I said to the kids, mom, I’m like, you know, I’m so grateful.

[00:26:11] You know, your son had some extra lunch money. I was just, and I was honest. I said, I’m completely broke. I didn’t have money for gas. She opens up her wallet, Bob hands, me $200 bills. And she goes, Oh, I’m so sorry. She goes, I should’ve been paying you for all your helping. And I’m like, she just whipped out 200 spots.

[00:26:30] And I realized like, here I’m so weird about accepting a little bit of money. That was nothing to her. It was more important for her kid to be safe. And so I really went home and thought about how was I thinking about money because my, my desire to not be rude. To be polite, to be nice to be liked was putting me in the poor house.

[00:26:51] Bob: [00:26:51] Yeah, absolutely. And I think there’s such a fear about being honest about where we are financially sometimes. Um, because we want to present [00:27:00] well, because most people, um, there’s a lot of people out there presenting like, look, I’ve got it together. And you know, internally they’re like, Oh my God, I hope I hope the check clears.

[00:27:11] I hope the credit card goes through and. There’s so much shame and we keep it to ourselves because we think we’re the only ones. Well that started talking about it on the air because it was very freeing. You know, I didn’t have a back window for like six months and it was great. You know, California has done a drought.

[00:27:28] Sandra: [00:27:28] Oh, well, didn’t have any snow or rain. Um, you know, and I had broken the window on my garage trying to get to soccer on time, back down, hit the back hatch window on my van, shattered it all over. We cleaned it all up, but I drove it without him. A back window for a long time. And when I would pick up that same group of kids, if they dropped a French fry on the floor, you know, we’d stop at McDonald’s on the way through to the daycare place.

[00:27:53] I tell them throw out the back window, even now my, you know, my kids are 17 years old, that [00:28:00] group. And they’re like, what do you remember? Thanks. I’m throwing French fries out the back window, but at some point you have to own it. You have to own where you are and when you do. And when you talk about it, you know, about being broke, going through foreclosure, you know, driving around without a back window.

[00:28:17] When I say these things and people laugh and then they tell me they’re broke stories. And then I realized, unless you were raised with a rich family that bailed you out at every time. More often than not most, everybody’s had some point in their life where they’re like, crap, do I eat or do I, you know, pay this.

[00:28:38] Bob: [00:28:38] Yeah. It’s I think, yes. Most of us have been there and it’s not something we run around going look at my debt, look at my failure. You’ll never believe it, how much I claimed in bankruptcy. Right. It’s like, we just, um, we want to sort of push it under the rug and, and say, look, it’s been really good.

[00:28:59]Sandra: [00:28:59] I [00:29:00] had a friend who, who, you know, she had this beautiful BMW.

[00:29:03] Her husband has this great. One of those big Dooley pickup trucks. They have this beautiful house. And you know, when I was at my lowest point, I was, I said to her, I’m like, I am such a failure. I can’t even keep a roof over my health. She says to me, she goes, Oh my God, we do bankruptcies.

[00:29:22] How about, you know, and that’s the thing is you don’t know cause people do present well and I’m like, what do you mean you had two bankruptcies? I haven’t even had a foreclosure or a bankruptcy. And I’m crying about how broke I am. Right, right. It’s we only get snapshots of everybody else’s life and we don’t get the whole album and we don’t share our whole album.

[00:29:44] No, I started to on the radio just because I found it to be very freeing and then it also takes the sting out of it. Like when I look at like how bad I felt with no back window, and now I tell the French fry story and everybody laughs like, you know, and it’s over these [00:30:00] things pass. They don’t last forever.

[00:30:02] Bob: [00:30:02] They’re temporary. Sometimes it feels forever, but it’s temporary. You also are passionate about, uh, being a philanthropist. See, I said it right this time. Um, why is that important?

[00:30:14] Sandra: [00:30:14] Because it’s the one thing that I feel that people can’t take away from you. You know, I went through a really ugly high conflict divorce with someone who had a lot of money on his family could throw it at me any time, drag me through the courts for.

[00:30:32] Six years of lots of false accusations. I had to continually defend myself and ultimately coughed up the kids and gave them to me full-time anyway, but that whole period made me, you know, I know people like Eleanor Roosevelt, I think said, nobody can make you feel bad about yourself, except you,

[00:30:53] you haven’t met my friends, my ex-husband and you know, you meet them. You know, but, [00:31:00] but you know, you’re only human and when stuff happens, you know, you’re human and you’re going to feel bad. And the things that I held on to during that time, um, and I did go through a foreclosure and, um, I felt really bad about a lot of things, but what I never, never could take away.

[00:31:18] From me was all the good that I did in the community forToys For Tots, for the pajama program for World of Children, for children, Uniting Nations. And I’ll tell you a funny story, Bob. I was pulled in during that time. I was pulled into court with, um, my ex, his girlfriend at the time claiming I handed a bag of laundry at her in a way that was threatening to kill her with a pair of socks, socks,

[00:31:44] Bob: [00:31:44] Socks are scary.

[00:31:46] Sandra: [00:31:46] Um, you know, but the long and short of it was when I went to go to court to defend myself for this restraining order, which was, you know, just junk. It was intended to humiliate me. I had over a hundred letters sent to the [00:32:00] court. And there was a bunch of them in Spanish.

[00:32:03] And I have them, I have copies of them that were defending me and they were saying things like, you know, Ms. Sandra bought me soccer equipment when I didn’t have any, you know, we got a backpack from Ms. Beck, you know, groups of kids. And, um, this same group showed up at one of my toys for tots events and the, the, um, That same year that the person that was helping me run the front door, she’s like, Oh my gosh, Miss Sandra there is a group of gang members here they’re in their low rider.

[00:32:32] You know, they pull up and, you know, everybody was kind of like, Ooh, they get out, you know, in the tattoos everywhere. And they’re like, Hey Ms. Sandra, we got toys for you. And they did. They brought a bunch of toys because they received toys through me and my programs. And so when I look at the work that I’ve done, particularly with children, disadvantaged children, children in need, homeless and foster care kids that [00:33:00] you can never lose that will ever, like, when I look at how bad my divorce was and all those things that I went through and, you know, the domestic violence classes I had to go to and learn about things.

[00:33:12] The one thing you couldn’t take away from me, Bob, I will take those letters to my grave. Yeah, that’s awesome. I made a difference when you asked me, why do you do Flint for you at the tax deduction? Yeah, you feel good, but you will always feel good. You’ll never feel bad about buying pajamas for the pajama program or dropping some toys into twice for tots. You get to make a difference to a kid you’ll never meet that you can never lose.

[00:33:39] Yeah, absolutely. And I think it’s important to say it to the listeners here. You can be a philanthropist by giving five bucks or by giving your time, you don’t have to set up the Rockefeller foundation. Uh, you can actually, it’s a mindset and I think it’s paying it forward. Um, and, and [00:34:00] for me, it’s, you know, about gratitude, uh, Of being able to say, Hey, I’m in this position, maybe I don’t have much, but I can offer this.

[00:34:08] Right. And you know, you prime the pump for prosperity, you know, prosperity is a wheel. And when I did a lot of the things that I was doing, um, miraculous things would happen to me.

[00:34:20] One of the families that I helped, I sponsored a family at Christmas. It didn’t even think about it. Six years later, the guy comes and he’s like, Hey, I’ve got a bunch of artificial grass. That’s left over from a job. I’m going to junk it. I want to put it out in your backyard. Cause my backyard was all dirt.

[00:34:35] You know, I couldn’t, I couldn’t keep up with everything he comes in and he puts this down for me and he’s like, I’ll never forget. You know, when I was. And incarcerated. You brought Christmas to my kids, you know? So these things, you know, you, you look back at your life and go, these things were terrible, but. The silver lining stuff is phenomenal. And [00:35:00] that’s the thing you hold on to, no matter how low you feel, you go, okay. 55,000 kids received toys from me and my lifetime. No one can take that away from me.

[00:35:10] That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Now I love that. I love that. Well, we are getting to fast five, so I have to, I’m going to change track real quick here. And, uh, these are just top of the mind, uh, whatever comes, um,

[00:35:23] Bob: [00:35:23] What motivates you to work so hard?

[00:35:26] Sandra: [00:35:26] Uh, kids, whoever they are, they don’t have to be mine. Anybody else? The more money I make, the more people I can help.

[00:35:31] Bob: [00:35:31] Awesome. What, what would you sing at karaoke night?

[00:35:36] Sandra: [00:35:36] The Canadian national Anthem and French.

[00:35:38] That’s my crowd pleaser,

[00:35:39] Bob: [00:35:39] I don’t even, I don’t even think I could do it with the words. If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life. The same thing. What would it be?

[00:35:49] Sandra: [00:35:49] Oh my God. He sat with pepperoni pizza with mushroom and onion.

[00:35:54] Bob: [00:35:54] What was your last impulse buy?

[00:35:56] Sandra: [00:35:56] Oh, this I’m holding it. Mermaid coffee [00:36:00] cup, because everyone should have a little fun in their life.

[00:36:03] Bob: [00:36:03] Absolutely. Would you rather win the lottery or work at the perfect job?

[00:36:08] Sandra: [00:36:08] Win the lottery. I can make that money into more money. Hello? Absolutely.

[00:36:17] Bob: [00:36:17] Absolutely. Well, we’re at our M and M moment, our sweet spot money and motivation. Can you give us, um, can you give the listeners a practical financial tip or a piece of wealth wisdom, something that. You know, you’ve had all these different things going on in your life and here you are.

[00:36:34] Sandra: [00:36:34] Absolutely. When you look at spending something, put it in the bank because when you have money in the bank, you have the power to say no, When I was broke, I had to take a bunch of really crappy jobs work for a bunch of obnoxious people with an MBA typing letters for a guy that treated me just like the biggest jerk in the world.

[00:36:58] And when you have [00:37:00] money in the bank, it gives you the power to say, no, you can say no to something and enjoy your kids. You can say yes to other things. So money in the bank gives you the power to say no.

[00:37:11] Bob: [00:37:11] Yeah. And how do you, um, just to, to piggyback on that, when things are tough and you’re looking at buying something that maybe you, you would like, but it’s not absolutely necessary. How do you tell yourself, you know what, not today, I’m going to save that for later. I’m going to keep the money in the bank.

[00:37:31] Sandra: [00:37:31] I just think of that guy that treated me so badly and go, is anything worse going back to work for a jerk? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely kills it right in the spot. Yeah. Well, I mean the bank wanted another kid. I would just go to Walmart on a Saturday morning. Watch everybody that I come home and go, okay. I’m satisfied with two is good.

[00:37:54] Bob: [00:37:54] Two is good. Uh, well, that’s great. You know, I mean, one of the things that I really like, [00:38:00] what you’re saying and talking about is this, uh, Taking yourself out of victimhood. Um, like we all have circumstances that are beyond our control.

[00:38:09] Um, and, and so it may not be our fault personally, but we can choose to say, I’m going to get up. I’m going to move forward. I’m going to push through this, um, in spite of everything and I’m going to figure out what can I do today to keep moving me forward? Um, and instead of, Oh, I’m going to stay in my story.

[00:38:29] Um, and obviously kids are a motivator there for you. Not just yours, but, but kids, um, but also this, uh, this thing about empowerment and then paying that forward, helping other people, seeing that other people are struggling instead of saying, Oh, not my problem. And one of the things that you talked about earlier that I think is so important and I always like to reaffirm this is community is so important.

[00:38:54] We need our community and I think. Uh, I say this a lot, but in [00:39:00] the U S especially, um, we have, have so much money that we can isolate and disconnect from people and not actually deal with being in community with other people.

[00:39:13] Sandra: [00:39:13] Sure. I mean, it’s easy and I did it for a while. And when you find yourself isolating, you just go down this rabbit hole and it’s really hard to get out when you go and you commune with people, whether it’s at your church, whether it’s at a soccer game, you just walk around and say hello to everybody.

[00:39:30] Start listening to your stories that you’re saying, but listen to the stories of other people and you’ll realize, you know what? Everybody’s got something,

[00:39:38] Bob: [00:39:38] Everybody’s got something. Where can people find you online?

[00:39:42] Sandra: [00:39:42] Oh, they can go to Beck Multimedia or they can just Google Sandra back. They can listen to Military Mom Talk Radio or Motherhood Talk Radio. Any of those, you can go to toginet.com.

[00:39:52] Bob: [00:39:52] All right. And you’ve, you know what you need to be. I mean, I’m going to be looking forward to like your next 10 books. [00:40:00] You, well, we’ll look forward to that.

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[00:40:28] Sandra it’s been so much fun. I really enjoyed it. I thank you for coming on today.

[00:40:32] Sandra: [00:40:32] Thank you. I had a good time. .