Episode 95: How to Quit a Government Job & Become a Full-Time Entrepreneur with Chiante Jones

Acquania Escarne 0:00

You are listening to The Purpose of Money podcast, a podcast where we talk about ways to build wealth and create more freedom in your life today. I am your host Acquania Escarne.

This is season five of the show. I want to thank you so much for rocking with me this entire time and supporting the podcast and all of our guests. Happy New Year. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season.

I am excited because we are in the fifth season of the podcast. And I can't believe how far we've come. Last year, we hit 20,000 downloads. And I want to thank you guys, I started The Purpose of Money podcast in January of 2020. Well before I knew what was to come, and I just wanted to share entrepreneurship stories and more wealth building tips and you guys have just amaze me with your feedback comments and I love when listeners contact me to tell me about their favorite episodes, and what impacted them the most. Keep the comments coming.

Definitely leave a five star review wherever you're listening, and I hope you enjoy this season. As much as you have enjoyed those of the past. I wanted to start out Season Five with a lot of value so that you can get your finances in order in 2023. So we're going to kick off season five, with a series of financial educators coaches, these women are dynamic. So in this first episode, we are going to be with Chiante Jones. But I can't wait for you to hear next week's episode with Ericka Young and she will then be followed by Zinnia Adams.

I hope this series helps you get clarity in your finances and helps you figure out your goals for this year and how to crush them. So without further ado, let's hop into this episode and I hope you enjoy the series.

Hey guys, welcome back to The Purpose of Money podcast today. I'm super excited. We are joined by Chiante Jones and we're going to talk about financial flexibility and why it's important she Chiante Jones is a super awesome dynamic financial coach, who after becoming consumer debt free accumulating over a million dollars in net worth and taking the leap from her nine to five she became the firsthand person you go to for freedom and options that come with having well managed money. Her advice has been featured on PBS and numerous podcasts and her clients have said coaching with her has changed their life and may talking about money feel safe and approachable. Chiante Jones is a financial coach and founder of Dollars and Change. As a certified personal and executive coach. She Chiante works with professional women who are ready to create more flexibility in their lives by confidently managing their money and executing a realistic plan to eliminate debt. Through personalized coaching. She provides education, guidance and accountability to help them have a more fun and fulfillment while still creating a solid foundation to build wealth.

Hey, girl, hey, welcome to the podcast. Chiante, How are you doing?

Chiante Jones 3:44

I'm doing good. Thank you for having me.

Acquania Escarne 3:46

Of course, I'm super excited. Most people think because I'm a financial coach, that I would be afraid to have a financial coach on my podcast, but I'm actually super excited because you love to talk about money just as much as I do.

Chiante Jones 3:59

Yes, right. Right. Two financial coaches talking about money. Here we go.

Acquania Escarne 4:03

Here we go. So you're gonna get all the gyms today. So get ready. I'm super excited to have this discussion because one, I think you're amazing. Two your money nerd just like me, we both met at Fin Con, which is one of my favorite conferences, and you are a woman of color. So for those who are not watching the video, she is a beautiful woman of color and she loves natural hair just as much as me. But before we get into how amazing you are and some of your tips, and what the heck is financial flexibility. Let's first talk about you and I'm gonna take it back just for a minute, so bear with me, but I want to know what was money like for you when you were growing up?

Chiante Jones 4:46

Yeah, so I grew up with a single mother and so I always saw her work. You know, she always had at least two jobs and multiple jobs to make ends meet and we the good thing is that we didn't struggle like we were stable, like, we weren't like jumping from house to house or anything like that. So it was a stable environment. But I will say that we were, you know, more moderate income. But I didn't feel like we went without anything.

I do know that money was a factor in things though, like, certain things were to maybe certain grants were too expensive or, or, you know, we might not be able to actually afford that. So we, she did teach me to live within my means, like, so I did see her do that and for me, like growing up, so I just kind of had like a natural affinity for money, I remember, whenever I would get money, you know, from whatever source, I would always do pretty well at managing it myself. That was just something that naturally did. I think part of it was that natural skill, but it also was, I think, not wanting to be a burden to my mother, like I knew she already had things going on.

So I was like, if I could handle it myself, or take care of myself, then I would do that a lot of times. So I'm going to her asking for money is because I really needed that, like, my I don't have no money to do whatever it is i'm trying to do. So. I've always um, so I don't have like really negative memories of money. But I do feel like there was some scarcity there. But that probably was the situation truly at that time. I did have to work through some of that as I got older. And that was no longer the situation. Right?

Acquania Escarne 6:10

Okay. So what was your aha moment for you when you realized I need to get out of debt? Because, you know, I, I read how you became consumer debt free, and then really started to educate people about their money, and you went from debt free to a million in net worth. So I always wonder, like, what was your light bulb, or the moment where you hit maybe rock bottom, or however you would describe it?

Chiante Jones 6:37

Yeah, so for me, like I said, because I was always pretty good at managing money even if I didn't have all the details, or know all the things I just had kind of general sense of doing healthy things, with money even if it wasn't like perfectly optimized, it was like moving in a different direction. So I was fortunate in that regard. So really, my moment was December 2016.

Remember, like, December 2016, is what happened Acquania. It was it was performance evaluation time at my job. I was, you know, I remember walking over to my boss's office feeling really good about the work I had done for the year, and I looked at the rating sheet and like knew, feel pretty confident where I will fall out and how much raise I would get. Then just, you know, shortly after getting into the office, I just found myself sitting across the desk, from my manager with tears running down my face, because my performance evaluation was mediocre and did not reflect the work that I had done for the year. I just remember feeling so you know, limited and undervalued and powerless in that moment. You know, because somebody, there was somebody else and in control choosing, you know, what they wanted to give me and limited me in that way. I just knew at that point that, okay, I have followed all these rules done all the classic high achiever following society's rules of what success was, and I just knew at that point that it was gonna be up to me to redefine my own path to success and to do something different. I knew that money was gonna be a large part of that.

Acquania Escarne 7:58

Interesting. That's so interesting. So I do have a question, though. Do you think it was personal? That evaluation.

Chiante Jones 8:09

I do not think it was personal. Because I can even see like when my boss saw the way that I reacted, like kind of the disappointment and like devastation, like "Wait, a minute, what do you mean" I can see almost like her face as well, like, almost feel like she made a mistake type of face. Even even like, you're seeing that retiring soon after that. So even like the before she retired, like the next year, or whatever it was, she ended up giving me like the highest rating almost in a way to like, make up for the fact that I feel like it was her way of saying like, I kind of messed up last time. Here, I want to make sure I go out and give you you know what -

Acquania Escarne 8:42

Your flowers or?

Chiante Jones 8:44

Yeah, so like, so I don't think that it was personal to me. I think she got and I actually don't hold any animosity towards her for it. I think she did what she thought was best at that time. I just did not feel like it was reflective of what I had done. So yeah, and it was really like that was really a blessing in disguise, because that is what opened my eyes to new paths and possibilities. Before that. I was never thinking about entrepreneurship, I did not have a side hustle. I was just like, not even thinking about any of that stuff. So it really was like, the thing that helped me to see something bigger like and realize, okay, this can't be it. Like there's something more from me than just this. And that led me to entrepreneurship and financial coaching. So like I say, it really ended up being a blessing in disguise.

Acquania Escarne 9:28

No, that's good. That's good. And I'm glad that you saw it that way. That's we call that the silver lining. How long had you been at that job before that incident?

Chiante Jones 9:37

Yeah, so I had been there over a decade. So probably like 11-12 years at that point. It was it was that good government job to was working for the federal government. So like, you know, I was like, Oh, this is this is what successes it's I made it but yeah, I'll be honest, like, even before that moment happened, there were times along the way where sometimes I would, it would come to my mind like is this it? Is there something else for me? Is there something more? And I will just always kind of push that to the back of my mind. Like, no, this is this is this, this is what I was trying to do. I'll be content and I was comfortable I was, you know, climbing the ladder and getting promotions to make more money and everything. But after like after the fact I thought about I was like, you know, I did have those moments where I kind of question. I didn't know what to do with at the time.

Acquania Escarne 10:20

Yeah, I, I can truly understand what you're saying. Yeah. And I think it's hard because when you have a good government job, you will have a lot of people tell you, you have a good government job. So why would you ever think about leaving, you should retire from that job, you should just ride it out. Sometimes I try to tell people that riding it out is not only painful, if you're not happy. But it can also allow you to miss so many opportunities, because 10 years, let's say you were 10 years from full retirement is not a short amount of time.

It's so decade of your life and so, you know, everyone has to make decisions about what's best for them. You have to weigh your pros and cons. But I definitely feel like it's not always as simple as let me just do another 10 years, or let me you know, just finish it out. Then I can do whatever I want. Because the reality is a lot of people who do reach full retirement in the government end up doing something else, at least the ones I know, they end up contracting or, you know, finding something else to keep busy because either they can't financially really afford to do it. Be for whatever reason, maybe they made different financial decisions while they were working. Or they're, they're afraid they're gonna get bored. So they ended up doing something else to you know, keep the mind active and keep things going. So I'm glad you had the aha moment because it led you to where you are now. So I really like to know what was the first side hustle you did? How did you get started?

Chiante Jones 12:07

Yeah, so. So my first side hustle. I'm like, everybody starts with some network marketing type thing, right? So. So actually, I wasn't seeking it out. But because I had a co worker friend, she was a really good friend, but a co worker as well. She had signed up to sell like jewelry. She knew that I really liked jewelry. I was like, "Oh, this is great". But like, and she was like, oh, you should sell it too and because I liked it. I was like, okay, and but because this was actually a few months after I had that, you know, that is December 2016. You know, the performance evaluation incident. Had that had that not happened before, then I would have definitely been like, No, I'm good. I don't want to do any of that. But like I said, my eyes were just open to something different at that point. So I'm like, "Okay, well, I'll do this". It was, it was less about I wasn't trying to like build a team with this company, and all that kind of stuff. It was more about me doing something outside of my comfort zone and doing something different kind of taking that first step into entrepreneurship and putting myself out there in a different way. So that was the first thing I did was selling jewelry for network marketing.

Acquania Escarne 13:05

I love it. How long did it last?

Chiante Jones 13:09

So that was early 2017 When I came across that and it wasn't until late 2017. So almost like a year after the performance evaluation incident is when I discovered financial coaching. So and I was like, "Okay, this is it." Like when the moment happened with a performance evaluation like my eyes were opened, but I didn't know what that meant. I was like, I don't know exactly what I'm going to do. But I know that there's something else. So I'll just allow myself to be open but it was like about a year later I discovered financial coaching. I knew that was going to be it I did both of them for a little while but then I ended up you know, not doing the jewelry stuff anymore. Because I was just taken taken taken away from me being able to focus on financial coaching.

Acquania Escarne 13:45

I like it, Yeah, how did you discover you were good with finances enough? Well good enough to teach other people to help other people? How'd you find your first client or your first solidified this is what I'm supposed to be doing moment?

Chiante Jones 14:00

Once I like so my background is in like my degrees in finance, like business finance, like it's I was working in the banking and finance industry for years like I was good at my own personal finances. So I knew I was good with money. For a long time. Like growing up I felt like everybody was like that. It wasn't till like I started talking to friends as I got older, maybe here's, you know, somebody, coworker say something that I was like, "oh, not everybody, you know, managing money the same way that I do or thinks about it the same way that I do and like the people are really struggling with it." So we're coming out of school, I didn't want to be like a financial adviser, planner, or investment banker.

I've always liked more than day to day money management, the fundamentals of money management. So like I said, financial coaching immediately resonated with me, but it was a difference between I had to like learn how to like teach somebody else something like when you have like a kind of a natural thing that you do like trying to break that down and say, "Okay, how do I teach somebody else how to do this too." You really have to like, unpack some things to figure that out. I did take a shortcut. I have found a program a Financial Coach Academy where that which was more focused on the business side, but that was created by another financial coach who had been in the industry for years. So that shortcutted my pathway to createing the business, but she also shared, like her structure of how she taught people stuff. And so that was really helpful because that it was very different from me doing it myself to being able to teach other people how to get similar results.

Acquania Escarne 15:20

Right, right. No, that makes sense. I've always tried to tell people, you can either hire a mentor and learn from a mentor, or you can learn from mistakes, but either way it's going to cost you. A lot of times, mentorship will accelerate your success, because they're going to tell you all the things they did to mess up so you don't do those things. Help you actually avoid mistakes, right. So I love mentors, I love when you have a guide who can kind of help you set up everything and I think it's important to understand that in this financial literacy space, there's a ton of stuff we give away for free social media tips, maybe even when we go live. But to be honest, like, there comes a point where you have to have an investment, right, you have to make a personal investment in your future and sometimes it means you need to hire someone to help you get to the next level, or to figure out the next step. That's where a good financial coach can be useful. So I want to talk about one of the things that you mentioned about financial flexibility. What is financial flexibility? And why is it important?

Chiante Jones 16:37

Yeah. So financial flexibility, this is a word that I've used a lot, because this was a key part of me being able to, you know, take the leap from my good government job, when I was when I finally got to a place where I was ready to do it. Like being at being having some space. So I think about financial flexibility as giving yourself space, it's like the, it's like a degree, it's a degrees, like, it's like levels to it, right like so as you kind of build your financial stability, security, freedom, like it's different at different levels, we have different degrees of financial flexibility, which means, it's like your ability to choose, adjust, reprioritize, and take advantage of opportunities, as they arise without money being a hindrance. It's like the, so you can make financial movements and choices with ease. So like not having money, be that barrier to the things that you really want to do. Is about you have financial flexibility. So that's really what it's about. And there's certain things that you can do to give yourself that right. So that's what financial flexibility is all about.

Acquania Escarne 17:36

Okay, I like it. I think it's important to kind of process that for yourself. So what are some of your tips for someone who wants to get on the path to financial flexibility? What should they do first, second, and third?

Chiante Jones 17:49

Yes. So I will definitely say when I look back at my journey, it wasn't about being perfect right. Looking back, I'm definitely like, "Oh, I didn't even I didn't know better than to do that." But what I was what's consistent, so consistency is more important than perfection.

So one thing that was really important on this journey was minimizing my debt. I'm not wanting to say, oh, all debt is bad. I know, there's some people who have that view. I don't think that but I do think you should be strategic in how you use your debt and like what you're using it for, and use it responsibly. So that was something that I always did. So if I took on some debt, I would have in mind, know, what is this for? How much is it? How long is gonna take me to pay off? How much is the interest rate on it?

So like just knowing what I was getting into, to the best of my ability at the time, at least, I was having kind of a plan to get it paid off early. So I wouldn't have to carry it. Also just building savings purposefully. So I will always save. Actually, in a way I was like a over saver at times, because like I would just kind of save to save but like one thing I have learned is to be purposeful, more purposeful with what you're saving for. Because then once you get to a certain level and you want to start investing that money, which is another thing that you want to do is to invest to actually grow your money and have it worked for you and to build wealth. So definitely being strategic about your debt. Like I said, not all debt is bad, but like just knowing what you're doing and making an informed decision and strategic decision about it.

Purposefully saving so that you have an emergency fund to fall back on if something happens to your income and for those other expenses like a lot of times people like unexpected expenses will throw people off but if you think about it, not all of them are unexpected, like you just didn't plan for them.

So it's important to plan for them if you can set up a savings bucket board or a sinking fund for it. You know to put a little money aside so that when it comes up then you can take care of it that's purposefully saving for those things and then investing to actually grow your money instead of just having to sit there and that account once you get to where you need to be with that start investing it so that it works for you.

Acquania Escarne 19:44

Oh my goodness girl say that part again for the people in the back talking about saving on purpose, so that those not so unexpected expenses do not throw you off. It's so true like for us. We are in Virginia have a luxury tax on all vehicles. So even if you don't have a luxury vehicle, you're gonna pay a car tax, right? Those, those are actually twice a year. You have the option when the first payment is due in May to pay the full amount for the year or you can pay in May and pay in October.

But it's like people forget, like, wait, I have to pay taxes on my car. And I'm like, But you knew that like, that's Virginia tax, you know, things right? But you know, and then you hear so many excuses like, well, I bought the car, why am I still paying for it? Well, because that's how Virginia works. But it's interesting, because, you know, we have savings in other areas, we might have the car tax, but in in comparison to other states, you know, our income tax is lower. So it's like, they're letting you take home more money, but they're also expecting you to put some of that towards the tax for having the car, you know, and I think that's so key is that we know they're coming, we know this is happening, you know, but we just kind of say, I'm just trying to get to tomorrow, or I'm just trying to get to next month or, and then you look up and you're like oh, shoot, I gotta pay that tax again.

For annual fees, like I always tell people, you know, budget monthly for the things you pay for once a year, and some people choose to pay car insurance once a year, but they could actually budget for it monthly. Then when that money comes out, you're not like, Oh, my God, I wasn't expecting that to come out of my account, you know, I have big plans

Chiante Jones 21:38

Were already set up and ready to, I have the same approach that I use with my clients to have money, like, let's let's turn this into a monthly expense. That's what it was like savings buckets, or some people call them sinking funds. If you know that stuff is coming up, like periodically or randomly, like put some money, so it's not so disruptive in that month, or like when the time comes like you like, :"Okay, I got that I take care of that." You keep moving.

Acquania Escarne 22:01

So what's your opinion about when is the best time to invest? So let me let me be clear on this question. Because a lot of times when you say the word invest, people automatically assume the stock market.

But I want to be clear that there's many ways to invest, like, for example, next week I'm hosting or, by the time this airs, this would have happened, but you can definitely get the replays a real estate challenge, right? A free real estate challenge. And not just buying your own home, but buying rental properties, or investing in hotels, ie hotel owner t shirt, or investing in Airbnbs. So I want to know, what's your opinion, if somebody is working, and they have a good job, steady income, and they are contributing to their retirement? And they have an emergency fund? At what point do you think they can be preparing themselves to invest outside of the employer? 401k?

Chiante Jones 22:58

Yeah, I mean, if they have all those things in place, where they're already contributing to retirement, they already have, you know, their savings built up. I will say as long as they have gotten rid of like any high interest debts, like interest debt, like credit cards, and those type of things, where's, you know, just manageable debt, maybe mortgage, maybe some student loans or something like that, that are gonna be a lower rate. I will say that, you're ready, you're ready to invest? Whether that's like I said, there's different types of investments besides just the stock market.

So either invest in there, or they say, in real estate or some other way, I think that's a great time to invest. Because that's the next step. Right? Let's grow this. Now. We've done like the foundational things, it's time to grow.

Acquania Escarne 23:37

Oh, yeah, I agree. What was your particular path? We talked about you have a million in net worth. So if you're willing to share, you don't have to give details of the percentages and numbers, but like, what types of things did you focus on to reach that milestone?

Chiante Jones 23:52

So for me personally, I'm more like, a lazy investor, to be honest. Like so for me, like a lot of that was through my retirement savings. So like, I really contributed there, I was always consistently contributing, increase it over time till I got to the point where I was maxing it out. Actually what being federal government I had to retirement vehicles to be able to save and well, they still had the same maximum, you know, the IRS limit on it, but I had two vehicles I could invest in being a federal employee. So I just got to the point where I max those out.

We did have some real estate over time. So I bought my first house when I was 22. Like a townhouse. When my husband and I got married, we bought another single family home and we rented out both of our prior houses. So I rent out my townhouse. He had like a smaller single family home, we rented that out. So we did that for and that was right around, like still coming out of the recession and everything. So we had those as rental property. But we got to a point after probably about five years, we just decided we didn't want to be landlords anymore, like so we did that.

But so for us, we just decided to sell both of those and we then used it to really flip it into another primary residence for ourselves. You know, invested some of that. But that's kind of been our path. And I will say a large part of being able to have a net worth like that was the contributing in investing in retirement accounts. But it also was keeping debt low, right? Like not having as part of your net worth, when you calculate that it's like not having a significant amount of debt or having equity in the home, and we bought it and everything. So that was part of that what contributed to the net worth as well?

Acquania Escarne 25:23

Absolutely, absolutely. And I tell people all the time, because some people when I meet them, they say, "Oh, I don't know how to invest. I'm not an investor." And I say, Well, if you're contributing to your work, retirement account, you are an investor and you, you need to give credit where credit is due like it is in the stock market, most 401 K's 403 B's, whatever your ABC of your retirement account is called, you are investing. Okay?

So I definitely think that's instrumental in harping on and just saying, you know, again, for the people who are listening, you are an investor if you are contributing to your work retirement account. Now, if you're at an employer who doesn't offer this benefit, and you would like to save for retirement, there are also vehicles you can save in outside of an employer, if you are eligible, according to the IRS guidelines. So we have the Roth Individual Retirement Account, we have Traditional Individual Retirement Accounts, also known as IRAs and then you can always invest in the stock market, it's not necessarily funds protected, and reserved for retirement, but it's still money that can make money and do some work for you.

So guys, don't short sell the benefit of investing in your work retirement account, especially if your job is giving you any type of matching funds, right. Any type of free money for you making a contribution, right? Yeah, absolutely. So that's really, really good. So I do want to ask, because this is the how to podcast in a lot of ways. I want to give my listeners tips on how to take the leap from good government job or any job to full time entrepreneurship girl, I done retired.

Chiante Jones 26:38

Please retire me, we've been working on it.

Acquania Escarne 27:19

So tell us what are some of the things that you and your husband did to successfully leap? Or did you just wake up and say I quit? What was your what's your exit strategy that

Chiante Jones 27:30

That is so far outside of my personality? Yeah, I just want you to understand that I'm super risk averse. So like, if I can get to the place where I took this leap from this good government job, like, if there's something that you really want to do, you can figure out how to do it too. But I just want to point out though, this didn't happen overnight. So like, like I said, the the performance evaluation incident happened in 2016. I didn't leave my job until January 2022.

So I just left this year, earlier this year. And I'll be honest, like the money piece, that was obviously part of it, I mean, I had to, you know, build up a savings runway. So I have some space to build to build my business and cover my expenses. During that time. We also made sure that we had outside life insurance, and I know you do a lot of insurance, but we had outside life insurance, because at that point, everything you know, up to a couple years ago, everything was through my job and I and I knew that, you know, once I left, I wanted to make sure that we had all that situated life insurance, actually, and also the disability insurance as well, while I was still working, so that's the tip, do it while you're still working so that they can base it on your income at that time.

Okay. Another thing we did is that we took out a home equity line on our house. So we had like, so we had equity in our house. So we was able to do that. So that we needed to have needed to tap into some funds, we have some available. I'll be honest, like the biggest shift for me, though, over that time period was just the mindset of going a different path. Like it just took me a lot of work to say, "Okay, I'm going to leave this six figure job to go out here in the unknown and not know what's gonna happen, right". So that was really the bigger part, the money piece, you know, because being a financial person, I can figure that out and navigate that, all that kind of stuff.

But it was just the mindset shift of going a different path and doing something different. What will people think? What if it doesn't work? All that kind of stuff that I really had to work through, to get to a place where I'm like, Alright, we're just like you were saying like, 10 years is a long time. I think the pandemic I was already thinking about leaving before the pandemic, but I think the pandemic even put it in more perspective, because you just see how fast something could change like you don't know. I was like, No, life is too short to be like worrying and worried about worried about things and regretting not doing something so it came to a point where my fear of regret was greater than my fear of the uncertainty of taking that leap.

I just felt like I have to do this worst case scenario where I go back and get a job that and even that's not like a worst case scenario because I look at what have grown so much as a person in that process that, you know, that would have been worth it in itself. But I was about halfway to retirement, I was like, I, here I am ready to go. I was supposed to wait another 20 years, I can't do that, right. I was like, I can't do it. That's a long time. Right?

Acquania Escarne 30:18

Sometimes we got to just say, You know what, today is the day now, but I, I sort of picked up that your risk adverse. So I'm not surprised that you built up savings. We would be irresponsible financial coaches. And I'm just kidding. Everyone has their own path. I know entrepreneurs who took the leap, and they just sink or swim, and they went into debt. And then they got themselves back out. They have seven figure businesses now. I know entrepreneurs who pace themselves, and they, you know, did the dual role in the job in the business for several years before they take the leap. It is totally up to you.

I think it's about being comfortable. But what you said about mindset is so real, because so many people in the government environment are going to tell you, this is the best thing on earth, you shouldn't even be trying to go outside, just put your feet up, maybe you know, do the minimum to get by, then there are other people who were like, no, if you want to be a GS 15, you got to work, work, work, work, work, you got to find this physician find that supervise him supervise her. It can be an environment that will make you scared.

Chiante Jones 31:34

Right? And what the the mentality there will have you. I mean, I used to think like when people would like venture off and leave and go, you know, they decide to take take, leave and go to like another job outside of my agency area. You know, people would just make comments like, oh, they'll be back, which a lot of times they did come back, but I just commend them for having the courage to do something differently to leave. Like, you're sitting there standing about somebody when you won't even ever leave when you probably don't really want to be here like that, right? You you given up on your dreams or whatever you want to do. So like how can you sit there and knock them down for it trying something different going outside their comfort zone? The mentality there is definitely here for life never go anywhere? No, there's nothing better than this. I'm just like, there's a lot of people outside of here doing all right, you know, say?

Acquania Escarne 32:14

Yes, doing all right. We just sometimes we just have to have faith and and know that we are skilled experts in what we do. If we don't make it at what we're trying to do, we can always go back to those skills and maybe that job. So I do think that the possibilities are there, it's just a matter of are you willing to take advantage of them? So this has been like a really entertaining, fun conversation. Thank you so much. But I always have one signature question that I asked all my guests. The name of the podcast is called The Purpose of Money. So I want to know, what's your purpose for money?

Chiante Jones 32:58

I will say my purpose for money is definitely well, flexibility, right, flexibility and options, right? Like, I really feel like money. It's not money. It's not for the sake of money, like you build wealth to give yourself options like give yourself options to do the things that you want to do spend your time where you want to spend your time, do things that are meaningful, you meaningful to you have the impact you want to have give the way you want to give support who you want to support. I think that's really what having money it's about is money is a means it's a tool to be able to help you do the things that you really want to do in your life. So that's what I would say the purpose of money is to give you options and flexibility.

Acquania Escarne 33:36

I love it. Very, very good. Very good answer. So before we go, I want you to tell my listeners, where can they find you and follow you so they can hang out some more.

Chiante Jones 33:46

Yeah, let's hang out guys. So you can find me on Instagram and Facebook. I'm at Dollars and Change Coach and on YouTube. I'm ramping up my YouTube channel. So you guys check me out there and subscribe. I'm at Dollars and Change Coach on there. This just started handles. so @dollarsandchange. And my website is dollarsandchange.com You can go there and find out more about financial coaching and schedule a free consultation with me. If you're interested in services.

Acquania Escarne 34:15

Let's do it. So you heard that guy's free consultation website, Instagram and YouTube. Go ahead and check it out. I will make sure to drop all the links in the show notes. Until next time, keep building generational wealth.

Thank you for listening to The Purpose of Money podcast. For more resources and information, check out my website thepurposeofmoney.com and while you're there, please sign up for our newsletter so you have the latest information on new episodes and blog posts. Until next time, keep creating freedom in your life today.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai