036: Increase Your Profits Like a Boss with Hilary Hendershott

Hilary Hendershott is the host of Profit Boss Radio, a weekly podcast for women and money. Hilary has an MBA, and she’s a Certified Financial Planner. She’s a TEDx speaker, and she’s been featured in the Wall Street Journal, NBC, ABC, FOX, DailyWorth, and more.

In this episode, Hilary and I talk about her interesting history with money, her financial failures and successes, and her amazing plans for the future. I had a lot of fun with this conversation.

Listen to the Episode with Hilary

• Listen to it on iTunes.

I hope you enjoyed that. A big thank you to Hilary for giving us the gold today.

Share on Twitter

Developing a Positive Money Mindset

Once Hilary made the mental shift to doing what she needed to do with her money, everything changed for her. There is no longer a decision over whether she is going to save, or going to avoid debt, or going to build wealth. Those decisions were made once and for all and it makes every decision that follows easier.

Even though she was trained as a certified financial planner, Hilary found herself overspending on a regular basis. During the financial crisis of 2008-2009, Hilary lost her income for a period of months. She was in a commission only job, and she had an adjustable rate mortgage that was going up every single month.

Hilary drained every penny she had trying to hold onto a condo that she bought for $375,000 that in the end was worth about $195,000. The lessons that she learned through the devastation of literally going broke stayed with Hilary, and she became determined to change her way of life.

Seriously Deep in Debt and Digging Out

We hear often about people being $40,000 or $60,00 in debt. Maybe even $100,000. But Hilary was over $410,000 in debt with no way to pay her mortgage or her credit card payments or the payments on the BMW convertible she was driving.

She ended up renting out the condo for a year to help with cash flow, but it was only a band-aid solution. She also called the credit card companies and told them that she couldn’t make any payments for the time being.

Hilary’s father was kind enough to bring her on in his financial planning business full-time so that she could leave the commission only job. And then she went into serious underspending mode.

Credit Repair and Automated Savings

Hilary used a credit repair service to get her credit score cleaned up and had some real success using the service. They work by sending letters to the credit reporting agencies and forcing them to remove negative reports as soon as they are legally required to do so.

She also set up multiple bank accounts and had her paychecks directed to those different accounts for bill paying and saving. Having several accounts allows her to spend money and also save money. She can spend every penny in her spending account, while also meeting her financial goals.

Related: Improve Your Credit Score with Our Ultimate Guide to Credit

Setting Up Multiple Bank Accounts

If your bank has fees associated with their accounts, you may be wondering how someone can afford to have several different accounts. Hilary uses online banking, which allows you to have multiple accounts and name them.

She shared with me how she names her accounts – Yesterday’s Promises, Today’s Funds, and Tomorrow’s Dreams. It might sound corny, but she believes in naming them after the time you make the decision on what to do with the money in them.

Yesterday’s Promises is the account that pays her bills, so she doesn’t carry the debit card associated with that account. Tomorrow’s Dreams is for things like her next car, retirement, vacation, and she puts around $500-600 monthly into this account. She only carries with her the debit card for Today’s Funds, which covers things like gas, groceries, eating out, etc.

Planning for the Future and Retirement

Hilary and her husband are currently working toward buying a home in the San Jose, California area where they have been renters for the past 4 years. That is going to require at least a $1 million mortgage.

Further out though, Hilary knows that in order to pay yourself $40,000 a year forever, you need at least a million dollars in investments. But she lives in one of the top 4 highest cost of living cities in the United States. So $40,000 per year simply won’t allow them to live at all.

Her goal is to reach $10 million in net worth, and her husband has the same goal. She reminds us that even if they reach that goal of $20 million, it doesn’t take a single dollar away from anybody else.

How to Reach $10 Million in Net Worth

One thing that any financial expert can tell you is that if you have a net worth in the millions, the capital gains taxes will be large. Hilary isn’t afraid of that but calls it part of playing the game. So how does she intend to get to such a large net worth?

Her main goal as a certified financial planner is to help as many women as possible to become financially successful. So that means she needs to help a lot of women. In her business, she is busy outsourcing as much as she can so that she can spend her hours doing things to grow the business and increase income.

Show Notes

• 01:50 How changing her mindset has helped Hilary master her money
• 05:00 Hitting the bottom of the barrel and the devastation that followed
• 06:40 The incredible weight of Hilary’s debt and how she began to get out from under it
• 10:00 How does a financial planner’s daughter get into such serious financial trouble?
• 12:00 Using a credit repair service to clean up her FICO score
• 15:40 How to set up multiple bank accounts to control spending and stop money leaks
• 23:00 How much debt does Hilary have now?
• 26:00 How Hilary plans for the future and retirement
• 28:05 The roadmap toward having a net worth of $10 million.
• 31:50 How having a child has affected Hilary’s financial plans
• 33:45 Why Hilary wishes she didn’t have to learn lessons the hard way

Show Sponsor

Coming soon…

Links/Terms/Concepts from the Show

• Option ARM
• The Seven Stages of Money Maturity: Understanding the Spirit and Value of Money in Your Life
• George Kinder
• Vanguard
• Schwab
• Dimensional Fund Advisors
• Chase Online Banking
• Profit Boss Automated System
• Amy Porterfield
• Gary Keller
• Hilary’s Podcast
• Hilary’s Website

Full Transcript

Coming soon…

Watch the Video

Coming soon…

What’s Next?

Have a question? Leave a comment below or use my contact form.

Thanks for listening to this episode. If you like what you hear, please subscribe to the show on iTunes. I want to improve the show, so please leave a rating and review. Tell me what you like and how I could improve.

This show is part of the FinCon Podcast Network and was produced by Steve Stewart.