2020 Year-End Review with the Happy Hour Ladies

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2020 Year-End Review with the Happy Hour Ladies

Today is the last Friday of the month and my regular listeners know that on the last Friday of the month, I host a happy hour on the podcast where I gather great friends with me to drink cheap drinks and talk about money topics.

If you can believe it, this is the last Friday of 2020. We made it! In the final Happy Hour of the year, the ladies and I reflect on our highs and lows of the previous year, the goals we set for 2020, and we set goals for 2021. Of all the episodes I recorded this year, I believe this was my favorite, probably because it is the final one from a year that has challenged all of us in the best and worst ways. I don’t know about you, but I am so excited to send this year off and put it behind us, and celebrate a new one.

What are we drinking?

Melanie from Dear Debt, Lola Retreat, and MentalHealthandWealth.com — Blood Orange Elderflower (Mingle mocktail)

Tonya from Tonya-Stumphauzer.com — Purple Moon - Huckleberry Vodka and Pomegranate Juice

Liz, Mrs. Frugalwoods, from Frugalwoods.com — On sabbatical

Shannon — Rosé

Podcast Notes

  • Highs & Lows of 2020:

    • Melanie: Highs include spending the month of January in Mexico, because it was a great time to be on her own and learn the language. Lows include her anxiety skyrocketing, due to the pandemic. Melanie stopped drinking this year, which was a high, but it was because of a low — she didn’t like how she felt when she drank. Another high is her relationship with her boyfriend. They have been together for over a year now.

    • Tonya: Highs include traveling to Kauai right before everything shut down, and she was able to get some other trips in (Bass Lake in July and, most recently, Sedona). Tonya moved into her own apartment in May and no longer has a roommate. Lows include working too much and not making enough money. She has been on and off burned out this year and she isn’t getting enough financially for it. Tonya turned 50 this year and it wasn’t great, because she did nothing with no one. Another low is having a family member who isn’t taking care of themself and they are declining quickly. Tonya accrued about $3,000 of debt this year, because she paid for Hawaii on her credit card. She thought she would be able to pay it off quickly, but then everything shut down.

    • Shannon: Highs include The Gym still being in existence. They are still standing and have some things lined up for 2021 that will be exciting for the business. The time she has been able to spend with her son, Will, was also a high. They were able to go to Park City together in August. Another high of 2020 is the quiet time. The first three months included a lot of travel and her last trip was a client event in Chicago. Lows include going into April with 70 plus employees and now The Gym has 46 employees. Some employees were let go and some left on their own to pursue other things. Another low is that Shannon’s ex-boyfriend had a stroke due to COVID, and dealing with the racial injustice/unrest was difficult. A high is also the pain of 2020, because we are all survivors and we should celebrate that. The good things feel extra good right now.

  • 2020 Goal Review & 2021 Goals:

    • Melanie

      • 2020: Goals included continue boxing, become fluent in Spanish, let go of her anchor client, get away from freelancing, launch mentalhealthandwealth.com and the Mental Health and Wealth podcast, do three Lola brunches, finalize the Lola Retreat schedule, and do more public speaking. She accomplished a lot of this, except she was only able to do one brunch before the shutdown, and she didn’t do any public speaking. Melanie made progress on learning Spanish and launched the website and podcast. She hasn’t completely moved away from freelancing, but she has done more workshops and some digital products and she has diversified her income in a way that she wants to move.

      • 2021: Ever since COVID, Melanie feels like she can’t look more than two to three weeks ahead. Everything feels so precarious and difficult and everyone’s plans went out the window this year. She wants to remain healthy, because her physical health has kept her well this entire time. She wants to stay mentally healthy, whether that involves continuing to not drink or to drink again. Melanie would like to sell more digital products, do more online events, and create an ebook. She wants to continue being happy in her relationship and connect with friends and family. This year made her get back to basics. Everything else is a bonus at this point.

    • Tonya

      • 2020: Goals included continue to do work she loves and be able to make a living, continue to work on her physical strength and build on that, work on her mental health, work through her 50 by 50 list, and have 2,000 Instagram followers. Tonya wanted to be happy, have fun, and be in L.A. Tonya has 1,400 Instagram followers right now and her garage gym expanded this year. She lives in L.A. and she is still playing beach volleyball and training. Overall, she feels strong and she is grateful for her health. Her theme for 2020 was Wu Wei, which means flow like water, effortless action. She has been up and down with it, but it has been a constant lesson for her and a good one for this year. She wasn’t resisting the changes this year, but finding a way through or around them. It is about accepting what is and taking the action you need to.

      • 2021: Tonya likes the theme word equanimity, where you are non-reactive and cool headed no matter the circumstances. She doesn’t want to be working so much without the financial payoff. She wants to pay off debt and focus more time on creating videos and art that mean something to her. She wants to find the balance of working and having a creative outlet. She needs at least another $3,000 in income to pay off the credit card debt and then something beyond that, which means she may need to charge higher rates.

    • Shannon

      • 2020: Shannon had a big goal of 20 Gyms in 2020. The plan was to start by opening three new Gyms and they did so in Brooklyn, D.C., and L.A. There was a grand opening in D.C. in February, which is a great memory. They did not get to do a grand opening in Brooklyn, which is the most beautiful of all Gyms. They couldn’t finish branding the L.A. location, because the branding company was in NYC and there were difficulties with competing projects and quarantine restrictions. The shell is in L.A., but it is mostly there, just waiting for branding. Shannon wanted to raise another 10 to 15 million dollars for The Gym, and she is still trying to do this. She wanted to continue working on her leadership skills, be a great mom, take time off, and take more time for herself. Her leadership skills were challenged, but grew, this year with all The Gym has been through, but she is thankful for her leadership team. She was able to spend good time with her son and spend more time alone.

      • 2021: Shannon is still on a month-to-month survival basis with The Gym. There is something big planned, but nothing is moving in the timeframe she plans. She needs to do a forecast, but there are too many variables right now. Forecasting expenses is easy, but forecasting income is challenging. The month of January is typically very good for The Gym, because people want to get their finances together. 2020 has really proven the business model and having a BFF, and The Gym needs to be on a bigger platform to be available for more people. The tech team is working on the DIY Gym, where anyone can create their own plan, and they are working toward a way to get to a free version of what they do, without the accountability of a trainer. Shannon wants to launch the DIY Gym and this is her big goal. Personally, she wants to fall in love and she wants to be in a relationship. She wants to continue to be a good mom and have good quality time with her son.


TAKEAWAY: My biggest takeaway is that I am so proud of every single one of us for making it through 2020. This was a year filled with so many challenges that many of us have never seen before, and, through it all, you persevered, you survived, you made it, and many of you achieved great things, but the greatest thing is making it through this very challenging year. Give yourself a pat on the back. I hope that you set out to make some really big things happen in 2021. I’m really excited to see what everyone is going to do in this new year and I’m looking forward to connecting with you then.

This pandemic has impacted all of us in a number of ways, and if your finances were something that stressed you out in 2020, I hope that you break the cycle in 2021 and start fresh with The Financial Gym. We’ve literally seen it all and we fixed it all, so I hope you will leave your financial stresses in the past, like 2020, and head over to, or send friends to, financialgym.com to get signed up today.

If you have any topics you would like for us to talk about during happy hour, please feel free to email me at shannon@fingyms.com or tweet to me at blonde_finance or join the private martinis and your money Facebook group and let us know what you want to hear. Until next time, take care!!

Shannon McLayComment