Getting Financially Naked with Lindsay Perez
Getting Financially Naked with Lindsay Perez
At the Financial Gym, we call the first meeting you have with a trainer, the “financially naked session”. In this meeting, you share everything about yourself financially so the trainer knows where you’re starting so that he or she can make the plan for how you can get where you want to go. Above all other meetings, this one scares clients the most because they are afraid or ashamed of their financial situation. Over year ago on this podcast, I shared my financially naked session and it led to a request for more. Now, this is a regular series on this podcast.
Getting in the hot seat today is Lindsay. She shares why she left a higher paying job to work for The Gym and how she’s succeeded in saving more while making less.
What Are We Drinking?
Lindsay — Mimosa
Shannon — Bloody Mary
Podcast Notes
Lindsay went to school for journalism and she worked for TV news out of college. She never thought she would work in finance.
She started to look at her own finances when she was about 25 years old and she was overwhelmed and confused. She had credit card debt, student loan debt, and she moved to New York to do a job in media that didn’t pay well.
Lindsay decided to work in finance, to see if she could get paid to get more understanding, because she didn’t want to go to grad school and get into more debt. There are very few careers that justify that kind of education.
She felt like she had enough skills that transferred. She didn’t know the first thing about finance, but she is good at doing research and she can talk to anyone about anything, including difficult, emotional topics.
She sold this line of thinking and got a job at Merrill Lynch. It was a great opportunity and she spent about four years there. She pulled her finances together and she felt really good about what she learned and she wanted to pay it forward, because she was mostly working with the ultra wealthy.
Lindsay found The Financial Gym through a free networking event. In September, Lindsay will have been at The Gym for two years, but Shannon wanted to hire her nine months prior to her start date. The pay is $60,000 for a starting Financial Trainer, and Lindsay needed to make more than that.
One of the partners at Merrill Lynch left and Lindsay and another coworker were asked to take over the partner’s job. They did the job well, but they never compensated Lindsay. She is now a negotiation coach, because she spent a year negotiating for herself and she knows how to have these conversations.
When Shannon offered Lindsay the job in January for $60,000, Lindsay had just received a $22,000 pay increase, completed her emergency fund, and paid off all of her debt and she turned the job down.
Shannon saw Lindsay that summer and told her the Trainer position was still open. During the nine months, Lindsay had never saved less.
She didn’t go back into debt, but she traveled a lot and spent more than ever. She also met her boyfriend who lived in Dallas at the time. The money helped her be in a relationship.
Shannon offered her the job again at the same rate, and Lindsay tried negotiating again. They couldn’t increase the amount, and Lindsay said yes the next day.
Questions from the financially naked discovery questionnaire:
Birthday: November 13, 1989
Job: Level 3 Trainer at The Financial Gym
Pay: $70,000 (temporary pay cut from $80,000)
Take home pay: $2,244 two times/month
Chase Checking: $227.91
CitiBank Accelerate Savings (Emergency Fund): $10,000
Travel Fund: $564, redirecting contribution to Betterment for now
Moving Fund: $5,000
The Steve Fund (camper bus): $4,500
Betterment Account: $21,945
Roth IRA: $3,029 (contributing $100/month)
Rollover IRA: $34,076
Student Loan Debt: $0 (was $40,000; paid off in Dec 2017)
Credit Score: 796 (was 805, prior to a recent credit check)
Recently Purchased House: 2.25% VA loan for 30 years for $419,000; no money down, no PMI
New Mortgage Payment: just under $2,500 (current mortgage is $3,600, next month would be $5,000 based on under estimated taxes)
House Closing: Current house 8/20/20, new house 8/26/20
Life Insurance: Not yet
Will: Yes, used an online service but it needs to be notarized
Children: None, undecided for the future
Goals 1-3 years: adopt a couple older dogs; start working on renovations on the new house; purchase the camper van, Steve, and travel in it
Goals long term: travel, move back to the Tampa area
Sacred Cows: travel, freedom, flexibility to change her mind
Connect with Lindsay:
Website: The Financial Gym
TAKEAWAY: My biggest takeaway is that a higher salary isn’t always the best way to a financially healthy life. We’ve seen clients take pay cuts and save more because they’re in a job where their mental health is in a better place and there’s less need for emotional spending.
If you’d like to get financially naked with my team, and drop any fear or shame you have around money, I hope you’ll reach out to us at The Financial Gym. My trainers have literally seen it all so nothing will surprise us. We don’t care how you got here, we just care about getting you where you want to go.
The great news is that we have a number of promos going on now, so if you’re ready to manifest your dreams like Lindsay in 2020, head over to, or send friends to, financialgym.com to get set up today.