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Jun 12, 2026
Every Dollar Needs A Job
Every Dollar Needs A Job
00:00
16:08
Transcript
0:02
Every dollar needs a job, or it'll disappear. [pen clicks] If you don't tell your money where to go, it'll disappear. Not slowly, not mysteriously, just gone. This is Mom's Money Talk.
0:17
I'm Ellie Ezra, the mom talking money like no one ever did for you. This is for the woman who's done managing money and ready to run her life like a business.
0:27
I'm not a financial advisor, but I've built companies, sat in rooms with investors, and learned how money actually works. And here's the truth: You don't have a money problem. You have a systems problem.
0:38
This isn't about budgeting harder or cutting lattes. It's about spending with intention, building assets, and thinking like the CFO of your household. Because if you're a mom, you're already running a business.
0:51
No one gave you the playbook, so we're gonna build one that makes your life feel lighter, not heavier. Most people think they have a spending problem. They don't.
1:02
They have an allocation problem because right now your money is being spent, but it's not being assigned. Spending is reactive. Allocation is intentional.
1:15
This is the difference between living paycheck to paycheck and building something over time. In a business, every dollar has a role. It's not random. Money is assigned to operations, growth, investment, profit.
1:32
That's why businesses scale. Some of these things are purely cost centers. Um, [clears throat] kids. And in every business, that's the case too.
1:42
Businesses, they, they know that not everything has a direct return on investment in typical dollars, and hard costs exist, so no shame about it. Just real talk. That's how your homes are running too.
1:57
So if you think like a business, you're thinking more about what the reality of the financial situation is and how to optimize and less emotional about money. Businesses strip all the emotion out of it, and you can too.
2:10
It will make you so relieved to do it in black and white, and we could all use that relief. Okay, so let's translate that to your life. Every dollar you make should be assigned to one of four roles.
2:23
First, operations, AKA survival. This is your life running. This is housing, food, childcare, bills, just necessary, non-negotiable. Second, growth. This is where your future gets built.
2:38
Health, learning, business, skills. This is where most people under-invest, but it's so fun.
2:47
This is where moms wake up one day to say, "I think it's time for that pottery class," or, "It's time to sharpen my swimming skills," or even renewing that Pilates membership. It's seeking the experience of learning.
3:00
It's one of the best things you can do for yourself and your mental health. It has to be part of your plan. In businesses, they plan for growth, so let it be.
3:11
This is this reinvestment into yourself, the business of motherhood and your family long-term. I mean, even listening to this podcast is an investment in growth.
3:23
What you do here helps you grow and has real financial returns. Health cannot be understated. Allocate towards this. You want a long life? You wanna be around your kids? It's worth it. Investment.
3:37
So this is typical investment. So you have growth, then you have investment. This is where money becomes more money. Assets, investments, ownership. This is how you stop relying just on income. You need income.
3:52
You have to have it, but once it gets in, we're talking about what you do now. This is also very fun.
3:58
This is where you get to actually look at the long-term purchases that come back to you and your family and your kids for years to come. This is paying your future self. Now, don't get it twisted.
4:07
What I am not saying, I am not saying save, typical terms. Let me tell you something about savings. Your money in a typical savings account will not outpace inflation. "Okay, Ellie, but what does that even mean?"
4:21
It means that your big box savings account paying you.01% on your money is not going to grow your money. Why? Because inflation for the past few years has gone up over 4% a year. You know this.
4:35
Everything's more expensive, everything, and you are spending, and you see it. Okay, so that dollar you have in your account, it just lost 4% this year. It doesn't buy you as much as it did last year or the year before.
4:47
You know that, right? So how does this translate to savings? It's literally a melting iceberg. You need to get it out of a typical savings account and put it to work.
4:58
This is why you hear about the stock market so often because if typical returns on literal investments can outpace.01%, a typical savings account, or can outpace inflation at 4% on a good day, then you're at least keeping the stack of cash on ice longer instead of it melting.
5:17
But even that needs to make you money, not just maintain. You know? So as inflation goes up year after year, you actually have to make more money just to stay afloat, and that savings account, it...
5:27
You're losing money every year. A few fun tools I like, all things you can play with on your phone, which we love. Investment apps. Okay, so this is, this is where we just get real about what is accessible to you.
5:40
You can scroll your phone, see if there are shares of a company you wanna buy. That's like the easiest way I could put it in terms of investments, right? So you have something like Robinhood or Titan Vest.
5:50
You download the app, you can look at companies, and you can say, "I want a piece of it."
5:54
Now, typically, you would only be able to buy one full share, but something like Robinhood will let you put just $100 towards the company, so you own a fraction of a full share.
6:04
If a full share is $2,000 and you don't wanna buy one full share, you could just put your 100 bucks towards it, and you have a little bit anyway. All right, so that's a great and easy accessible way.
6:14
I don't have Robinhood, um- But I think that it's great. Uh, I like more sophisticated tools, but it's such a good entry point. So you can search, and you can see everything.
6:23
You can look on your phone, and you can just spend a little to get your feet wet. Okay, another one that I really like, it's called Rally Road. So have you ever wanted to own art or classic cars, literature?
6:36
Okay, so Rally Road will let you and others like you buy shares of collectibles. So you could shop for them, buy shares, and wait for a buyout.
6:44
So one of the things I actually bought on there, I made 10 times my money on an unopened Nintendo Super Mario Brothers 1990 game. Now, I never had the game in my hands. I just owned shares.
6:55
So me and a bunch of other people bought shares into the actual game, so one collectible owned by a group of people.
7:03
Uh, you can just put a few dollars in it, and you own a few shares of this collectible that maybe, maybe some of these things you wouldn't be able to afford, like the classic car or the Rolex, but they're all on this marketplace.
7:14
I actually own shares of an original print of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. I am super excited about that, but so far no one else is as excited about me and that asset I'm down.
7:24
But for a few dollars here and there, I love having collectibles that are not taking up room in my house that really interest me that I can put money into and just wait.
7:34
Uh, but I literally just swiped to buy pieces of these items, fractions of them, uh, and more, and it makes it within reach. It's a great alternative to traditional investments too.
7:44
So check that out, Rally Road, uh, and shop to your heart's content. And yes, you can lose money on these too, like I have with the book, but I'm still excited about it, and I'm still holding onto those shares.
7:54
So do your homework, and don't ever put all your eggs in one basket. Come on, guys. These are alternative investments, right?
8:00
So whereas last week you didn't own any art or, uh, high-end jewelry or even [laughs] Pokemon cards, you can get fractions of them inside here. I even saw shoes from basketball players.
8:12
So there's a lot there, uh, and it feels fun, but it really is an investment in something that will grow your money w- way better than holding that.01% return in your savings account, which you'll need a savings account, but not those.
8:25
Just... That's just for spend in case of emergency. We're talking about growing. All right. There's another one that I really like too, real estate.
8:33
So typically you hear there's one way to buy real estate, and I'm not opposed to the traditional way, like own your family home if you can. That's a great thing.
8:42
But what if you don't wanna buy another investment property if you don't wanna be a property manager, right? So check out this site called Arrived Homes. It's a great site that I love.
8:52
You can actually buy fractions of homes. So similarly to Rally Road and buying fraction of collectibles, uh, what Arrived Homes does is they are buying rental properties.
9:01
So a bunch of people, other moms like us, are all putting some money in. You can get in as low as $100. You could put thousands of dollars towards the investment of the home. The company buys the home and rents it out.
9:13
So before they ever do that, you're being one of many investors if you look left and right. All these other people are actually funding the cost of that home. Arrived Home will buy it.
9:23
Arrived Home will rent it, and you'll get your returns. So you can look around. They have a city fund. They have, like, you know, different things you can look at, but it's great because, again, you can start small.
9:36
It is real estate. It's valid. It's the rental market, and you don't have to be a property manager because that feels heavy, right? Uh, so check that out. I don't hate, you know, buying an investment property either.
9:47
I think that's a great idea, and I think as you get more sophisticated, you can look into all of those things. Uh, but easily accessible to get into the rental market, this is what I would check out, Arrived Homes.
9:58
Uh, okay, so they acquire the house through a funding round, you could be part of it, and then they lease it out. So you could buy in as little as a hundred bucks. I have account on there. I like it.
10:06
I like searching for new home rentals. Um, it's not the kind of thing that moves really quickly, so this is more a long-term play, like real estate typically is.
10:13
Your money is gonna be held up in there for a while, so think about that. All right. This is a lot for investments. I've given you a fun, [laughs]
10:20
a fun little list of things to look at that are apps you can use from your phone. You can go look around. Um, and I use a couple of them myself, and I like them, so. All right. Next.
10:31
What's the other thing that you need to be allocating your money towards? Lifestyle, of course. This is intentional. This is not accidental. This is something where you say, "Okay, what am I doing with my money?" Okay.
10:45
This is where you enjoy travel, experiences, things you value, not random spending, but chosen spending. Here's my big hot take on spending. Love your feedback on this. Let's think about why we spend. Like, really, why?
11:00
There's an exercise that I have learned and love to use. It's called the Five Times Why, and Toyota introduced this concept in advertising. And as someone who worked in advertising and marketing her whole life
11:11
and own a marketing business, I find this relevant, and I think it's relevant to how moms run our spending in a way that gets us to the outcome we want with a flexible amount of dollars attached to it.
11:21
If you run through this, then you'll kind of give yourself a budget on what you wanna spend for the experience you want. Okay? So let's do this. Uh, and it will reveal the life you're trying to buy. Okay?
11:31
So I love thinking about asking yourself why five times. Let's run through it. So why do I want this trip? I wanna book this trip. Why, number one? Why do I want this trip? Because I'm burned out. Okay, why, number two?
11:44
Why am I burned out? Because life feels nonstop with work, with kids, with responsibilities, no pause. Okay, why, number three? Why do I feel like I need a full trip to pause?
11:57
Because it's the only time I give myself permission to stop. Why, number four? Why do I only give myself permission on a trip? Well, because it feels special, like I earned it, like it's different from normal life.
12:10
Why, number five? This is the unlock. Why do I actually want the trip? Because I wanna feel present- I want to laugh with my kids. I want a moment where there's no rushing.
12:21
I want to sit in a hotel bed eating room service, playing cards with the kids, watching my kids laugh over and over, playing something stupid like slapjack and think this is a memory I want to create.
12:34
Okay, we kind of got to the root of that, the root of it. You don't want the extravagant trip, not really. You want this moment. Okay, so if you know you want the moment before you ever spend,
12:47
it's not really locked inside a hotel room. You can create that on a random Tuesday night or on a blanket in the backyard or at the park or in your living room with takeout on cards.
12:58
And yes, in a hotel in another country. But the point is the lifestyle you're craving, it's not location dependent. And in some cases, I would say it's not even money dependent.
13:11
So have the budget for the lifestyle experience that you want. And I'm not saying don't book it. I'm not saying don't buy it. What I'm saying is know what you're buying, then work into the price tag of it.
13:23
So let's get into the reframe we need. Right now, most people do this. They spend first, they save what's left, they invest if possible. And that order, it's going to keep you stuck. New order, let's flip it.
13:35
Allocate first. This is what businesses do. They have to because of cash flow. So do you. Allocate first, spend intentionally. Ask that why five times. Even if you have a full cart at Target, ask why.
13:48
What are you getting at with these purchases? There is no right or wrong answer. It's your answer. And then three, build consistently, right? It could be alternative assets, which are really fun.
13:58
It could be real estate, which is really smart and long-term. It could be shares of stocks that you love that you're following. And all of it is accessible to you today. They're accessible on small budgets.
14:09
They're accessible from your phone, funding from your bank account. Easy relief fun. I'm not telling you to go get a real estate agent and buy another property. We're not there today.
14:22
Today, we're talking about accessibility and thinking like a business owner. Business owners think lean. They have to get to profit quickly. They have to spend a little.
14:30
Then they can reinvest in the business when they make more. That's what we're doing here. We're being the chief financial officers of our household.
14:38
You think about money like a business and it will change everything for you. So now ask yourself, what percentage of my money is building something? Okay.
14:47
So you could just do it really easy, you know, which is building or what percentage is just maintaining my life. Am I funding my future? If your money isn't building something, it's just being used.
15:02
Next time money hits your account, before you spend anything, assign it. Even roughly, even if we take those four things, we say 25%.
15:10
But if you know the income ratio to the operations, that's a good place to start, right? What does it take to run your household and what percent of your income is that? That's probably the highest percent.
15:19
And then you have everything else. So if you're funding operations first, then you can look at growth and lifestyle and investments after. So what have we talked about today? You don't need more money to start.
15:33
You need a plan for the money you have because once every dollar has a job, your money starts working for you. That's what you want. So stop budgeting your life away. Start building something that pays you back.
15:48
The goal isn't to save like a typical saver. It's to build a life that money can support. Spend smart. Acquire assets. If this helped you think differently, share it with a mom who needs it. I'm Ali Ezra.
16:05
I'll see you next time.
Mom's Money
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