Beth Schomp is a 33 year veteran of the consumer direct marketing world. She’s reached some of the highest levels of success and now leads her team on finding their own success in the consumer direct sales world. Beth is a firm believer in servant leadership. Her passion and mission are to serve people to help them get where they need to go in life.
Beth’s daughter, Taylor, recently made the jump to the consumer direct world as she realized the typical job model wasn’t going to provide the life or freedom to travel that she wanted. Taylor has quickly found succe aress and surpassed her salaried income within 12 months of starting her direct marketing life.
Discover more about Beth Schomp at https://lifeonyourownterms.net and Taylor Schomp at https://www.livefreely.us/
For a complimentary copy of The Millionaire Choice: Millionaire or Not. You Can Choose. and the Creating Millionaire Families eBook, visit themillionairechoice.com.
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Consumer Direct Marketing Success with Beth and Taylor Schomp
Announcer: Is money slipping through your fingers. Are you missing your opportunity to become a millionaire? Welcome to the millionaire choice where we talk to millionaires and future millionaires about how to build wealth and what to do with it once you have it. We're here to help you do two things, make your millionaire choice and create your own millionaire plan. Here's your host, speaker, wealth coach, and author of The Millionaire Choice. He made his choice, and he created his millionaire plan at age 25; now it's your turn. Welcome your host, Tony Bradshaw.
Tony: Welcome back to the show. I'm excited about the guests we have on today. Uh, she's been a friend of mine for several years and has a plethora of knowledge in the consumer direct marketing world. She's been working in that world for over 33 years. And for you people that don't know what consumer direct marketing is, it is a direct sales business. And so instead of doing the j-o-b route, instead of working on the job, she's been working in this line of business for over 33 years and has a wealth of knowledge and has been very, very successful at it. Beth is a big believer in servant leadership, and if you haven't heard that term before, it's very simple. It just means leadership, where you serve the people, and for Beth, that means serving other people to help them get where they need to go. Thanks for coming on the show, Beth and Taylor, and having that talked to us about, you know, what wealth means to you and how you're, you know, how you built it and how you've gone about that. Your story is so interesting because I'm sure, I don't remember all of it, but the difference between, you know, you came actually from a more affluent family, whereas your husband, Russ, didn't necessarily grow up that way. Is that correct?
Beth: It's correct, and yet at the time, I would have never have called us a fluent, quite frankly. I came from a family where I never did without, but I was also taught just because you can afford it, doesn't mean you get it. And if you back the train up to my parents, my father especially, I mean, he came from poverty, so he came from nothing. My and my grandfather came from nothing and became kind of a self-made man. And because of a divorce situation, my father, you know, was with his mother while Dad's dad was out building his fortune. You know, back in the thirties and the depression, I mean, my parents were depression babies.
Tony: Wow.
Beth: They kept to that theme, you know, going through. When I was a little girl, our house, we couldn't afford curtains. My family came from the textile industry, and Daddy would bring home material, like thermal fabric, and he would hang that over the windows as installation, I don't really call that a fluent. But you know, as the years went by and you know, my father succeeded in the business world. You know, we were able to have nice things, but it wasn't until I went away to college. I went away to college at a private school, and there's where I saw affluence. That's where I saw wealth, and I felt like, Oh, that's how the other half lives. But again, it didn't change who I was, but it gave me more of a visual picture of people that could afford, you know, more than one Rolex watch, and that wasn't my truth at all.
Now, Ross's family, gain, he didn't do without either. He didn't do without, but again, it wasn't just, they had five children, and they, each one got the college education, and each one was given car upon high school graduation, and that was kind of it. And then they had to do their own thing.
Tony: Like figure it out. Yeah. So what, when did it shift from poverty with your dad to like at least some level of, you know, not having to do without? So it sounded like you struggled with, you guys struggled a little bit, but you know, as children, I didn't really realize that we were in the situation that we were in and it was just kind of, that was life.
And so we were going forward, just living out life on a daily basis. It wasn't till I was in my twenties when I started kind of waking up a little bit more to the difference, like you said, college for you, the difference between where I grew up and where other people that were around me grew up.
Beth: So, um, I will say growing up, um, my father and my granddaddy were amazing mentors for me. And I knew that not from an a, not from a monetary standpoint, but just from a, a gift standpoint, I knew that my family was special. I knew that no one had the kind of mentors that I had in Daddy and granddaddy, and to me, that is wealth, first of all, but coming from the textile industry... now the textile industry is not the same thing as the computer high technology industry. Those industries pay totally differently. So when Daddy was a plant manager, there weren't poverty for us. But you know, my parents had four kids, and so they were on a budget as Daddy made it into higher upper management with a major corporation when he became vice president and when he became president of manufacturing, that's when I think things started to change for them, for us as kids, quite frankly, nothing ever seemed to really change. Because again, we were given what we needed, and we were taught those values. Hopefully, I kind of instilled some of those values in my children.
Tony: I think Taylor learned a lot from you.
Beth: I think she did.
Tony: So what were, were there any like particular hardships, like you mentioned the curtains, what were there any kinds of things that kind of come back to you that you're like, Oh, that was, I didn't really realize at the time, but that was, uh, you know, an abnormality or a struggle that our family faced financially.
Beth: So when we would go on vacation. Sometimes what we would do, there were six of us, and we would get one hotel room with two double beds. My parents wouldn't be in one bed, and the four sisters would sleep side by side in the other bed, and to us, it was just like a campout, you know? So, but that's what they did to conserve and save money, you know, things like that. Then you look back, and you go, Oh. And quite honestly about the curtains, my older sister had to kind of point that out to me, I was like, oh really? Cause I just didn't know any differently. I just, I didn't. And you know, we certainly were not the wealthiest family in town by any means. I just knew from a, uh, achievement, from a touching other people's lives, making a difference in other people's lives, that's where I felt like that's where we stand apart. So we were so busy having fun, enjoying life, that, you know I, I can't really tell you that there was a light bulb moment where it just went, OH, I get it. I just felt we were always blessed and wealthy to begin with, you know?
Tony: Now when you and Russ started dating and rush shared this story with me, and so I'd love to hear it from you, is, uh, he talked about taking you out and buying cheeseburgers and not wanting to get cheese on the cheeseburgers because it costs an extra 10 cents, I think. So tell me about that.
Beth: Yes. So we were married. Gosh, we were, they always say that you hear like the seven-year itch. Well, really, when you're within the first, like usually one of the third year of marriage is where things can really kind of get a little bit more challenging because you know, the honeymoon has worn off and you know all those nice qualities, you're kind of used to being, you're taking them for granted a little bit. And so Russ was working really hard to save for our future, and I knew that. I knew that when I married him. That's the kind of person that he was, but he kind of took it a little bit to an extreme. So we would go out, I never will forget. We were going through Burger King, and he said, what do you want?
And I said a cheeseburger. And he says, you're going to get the cheese? And I said, yes. He said it's more money for the cheese. It's like it's a dime. It's a dime for the cheese. And so we went through a time where we were a little bit at odds with one another because we had the same goals, but we were not necessarily communicating on the same plan and the path to go about doing that. I knew his intention was good. I didn't follow that very easily. So yeah, that's the that's the story on that. That's true.
Tony: So how long did it take you to, like, what did that look like? Taking the cheese, you know, what took effort to get cheese on your next cheeseburger?
Beth: Quite honestly, you're talking about, we've been married now 36 years, going on 37 so you're going back over 30 years ago. So I really don't remember how we worked that out, but it was really in the communication, and I do remember this, we had to communicate, and this is kind of almost a little bit from a marital counseling standpoint, that we really had to learn how to communicate to each other's needs. And understand. And so that was important for him, that we'd be making those smaller sacrifices. But it was important to me that we also not make so many sacrifices in today that you're not living life today. So we had to come to that acceptance of both people. So I remember that. And working through and chipping away those layers so we could get on the same path.
Tony: Yeah, that's great. Yeah. I think sometimes we go on this money journey, but we don't realize how much of it is about being on the same page. And you know, I can say that the same about my wife. It's so funny when I wrote my book that, uh, I woke, and Beth tells this story a little bit, in one of the chapters, how one day I walked in and said, Hey honey, guess what? We're millionaires. And she's like, what? You know, she's got a baby under one arm and going, I didn't even know we were trying to do that. And, and I just, I had this vision for where we wanted to go for our future, and we were on the same page as far as debt and you know, and watching our money. But I had not shared some of that vision with her. And so I think that's a really powerful thing. If you get both people going in the same direction, you can accomplish a lot more.
Beth: I don't know if Russ told you this story, but this is totally on par with what we're talking about today. So we'd been married about a year, and we decided we were going, we lived in Northern Virginia, and we were going to build a chalet in the Poconos and build it as a vacation rental. And because it was construction, it was a construction loan. Uh, it started off, you know, we were making small little payments because it, you know, that grows as the, as a house grows. And this goes back, our mortgage on our personal home was 12.75%, and the interest on the vacation rental was 14.5. And, but that started off really little again. You know, cause it was a construction loan. I mean, compared to today, it's like crazy. Right. And so. I had never really had a budget. I had never needed to have a budget. We always had more money than we had expenses. And so I wasn't thinking anything about it, but I knew I had to equip this chalet with furniture and towels and silverware and pots and pans and things like that. So, for whatever reason, I got it in my head, Oh, I need a credit card for this. I'll get a credit card for, I had a visa, I had a MasterCard, I had a choice card. I had all these different cards, and it was charging all these things up. The thing about building the chalet is vacation rentals don't just start right away, even when it was completed, it took us a while to get our feet underneath us and get it rented, and I paid the bills in the house, and I remember realizing I had gotten us in trouble. I had $22,000 in credit card debt. You can imagine what the interest rates were on the credit card debt. And so I was embarrassed to go to Russ about it, but I knew I needed to. And I will praise him forever for how he handled this. Cause he did not make me feel bad at all. I went into him, and I said, I think I've gotten us in trouble, and I need your help. And I explained the situation, and he said, okay, so I want you to make a list of all of the, all of the charges. There were a couple of department store charges in there too, which you can't blame on the rentals. And he said, make a list of every charge with all the balances, but beside the balances, write the interest rates. And there's different theories on how to do this. But his theory was, we need to pay down the highest interest rates first, so take your low ones and just do minimum payments on that. And we paid down the highest ones and worked it all down. And so within six months, we had paid off all that credit card debt, but he never made me feel bad. He never chastised me; he never made me feel guilty. He was my partner in it and helped me solve the problem. And we've never had credit card debt since. So that would have been like 1984-1985. We've never had credit card debt. So yeah, all credit cards, but we pay them off in full. We always have, and we taught that to the children as well.
Tony: That's a wonderful example of getting on the same page to solve a pretty big problem. Right. I think a lot of times in our marriages, we, a lot of people that are in the financial straits or the financial troubles. Uh, they're in kind of those troubles cause they're not on the same page. And I think that's really cool. So you, you turn a corner, and I know you guys went from doing kind of the j-o-b model into your own business and I know a little bit about that, and you went from owning your own business and to, you know, different types of businesses, which is what you're in now. But walk me through that journey from that transition, from doing the j-o-b kind of mindset into that first business and then to where you are today.
Beth: So, Russ has always had an entrepreneurial mindset. I didn't see that growing up, so I didn't; I had more of the mindset of climbing the corporate ladder because that's what I saw, and that's what I kind of envisioned always to be. Russ was a salesman for the company that my father worked at, and my Daddy kept saying, You know, honey, I could get Russ a corporate job at corporate, and y'all can come and be close to home. And that's the last thing Russ wanted. At that point, he had a sales; he was a sales rep, so he at least he had some freedom, some time freedom. He still had responsibilities. He had to report to people, but how he structured his day was his own, but he still wanted more freedom. So he was looking for all kinds of different. Opportunities to be able to have his own business. And so there would be an opportunity here, and we actually would try, one time we tried, this goes back in the eighties when consignment stores were just getting out, so we were able to purchase goods, send them to a consignment store, and they would ticket it. They did all the work, and every week they would send me a check for what was sold. So it was an easy business to run, but at the end of the day, we couldn't get it more than showing a net profit of 20,000 a year. It just wasn't going to grow. And then those consignment stores were kind of starting to wane a little bit back in the day. And so we, Russ always had his eye open for different things. And so finally, there was an opportunity. Where the company that we used to work for, Daddy was discontinuing a line of underwear, that to them was a drop in the bucket. But Russ had the vision, gosh, if somebody could make that on their own and you know, just privately, that could be a huge business, and so we were able to and fortunate enough to be able to make that happen. That really was, that was the turning point for us. And so Russ left to that career, and he tackled that on. And what that meant though is it meant long nights, you know, we had a, we rented warehouses to be able to, you know, for him to work out of in stock. And I remember him sleeping on the floor with his hand on the phone. Because the trucker would be, we had to use the really cheap discount truckers. That meant they would do a delivery like at two in the morning. So Russ would sleep on the floor with his hand on the phone so that the phone wouldn't wake the girls up, and then he would have to drive over to the warehouse to help unload the truck. And you make those kinds of sacrifices when you have the vision and knowing what it is that you're going to do. Um, but that was the big turning point for us financially for that. I dabbled with other things that would be able to help me work from home. I wasn't so much interested at that point of making a killing financially. I wanted to be able to make enough to be able to justify me staying home and being with the girls cause I just wasn't going to put them in daycare. So I had my thing going on. He had his thing going on. With his thing, at that point in time he hit, that was the big turning point, was starting her own textile company.
Tony: How old was Taylor at that time?
Beth: Well, Taylor actually was just an idea back then. When we started that. We started that I think in 88 maybe, and Taylor was born in 91 she wasn't in the picture just quite yet.
Tony: Yeah. So now you ran that for a few years and then you guys decided at some point to shut that down.
Beth: And the story on that is we haven't really shut it down. We have been phasing Russ out, and we're actually giving that to our other daughter and our son-in-law so that they can, because they have three children, so that they can experience that time freedom that wealth can offer. I partner with Taylor in our other business. Taylor has that time freedom. We wanted our other child to be able to do that. So that kind of transpired in 2008, you know, when the US economy kind of turn to end, the stock market was not doing well, and we found that our particular business took a hit as well. We were marketing our products through a lot of mom and pop retailers. And when Amazon came into the, onto the field, it totally changed the face of retail. And so these, these mom and pop retailers were going out of business and, and their descendants didn't want to do it. And so I remember watching Russ at that point in time, cause he was, he was kind of honestly managing the decline of that business because it was going backwards. And I tell them, I said, honey, the demand for this product hasn't changed. It's just how people buy. It has changed. We got to go where they are, so we went on Amazon, so we, we still have that business. We're just phasing Russ out and phasing my son-in-law in.
Tony: Oh, that's wonderful. I don't think I knew that about it. And, uh, and, and the ages on your son-in-law, they're in their thirties?
Beth: 32.
Tony: So young business owners now, or not really young, I would say, but you know, a perfect time to start.
Beth: It's not too far off the timeline when Russ and I started it ourselves.
Tony: Yeah, I bet that's really exciting for them. And then Taylor, so you, you, you jumped into it. So you've made this transition, and I forget where you were at right after that business, what you were doing before you got into what you're doing now, which is Melaleuca, but what were you doing.
Beth: I was with a multilevel marketing company. I was at the party plan company. I sold skincare cosmetics; I was an image consultant. So I had a home-based business, and you know, it was a lot of fun. I was very successful in that company. I was with them for 16 years, and every year after year after year, I've got all this notoriety and winning all these trips, but at the end of the day, the trips don't pay the mortgage. In 2002 another company that is not a multilevel marketing business model crossed my path. And although I mean, I was happy quite frankly, because I had a good situation. Russ, his business was doing really, really well. I was comfortable. But the truth be told, and this kind of ties in also with I think where you want us to go in this talk, my team, the people I was wanting to help, that's what motivates me. And it's what motivates Taylor is helping other people. They were not doing well. And that, unfortunately, is the case with the party plan, business model. And so this other company crossed my path. And it was a different business model. It was a different concept altogether. And the big thing that caught my attention was the strong residual income that I could, I could, and other people I could, see earning significantly more month after month after month. So I changed horses back in 2002 whereas within the other company, they had, you know, marketed me across the stages as the number 10 money earner in that company. I matched that income in my first month here. So that kind of gives you an idea, financially, and that's what I saw. I saw that this could really build, take us. I remember telling Russ, I said, this business could actually take us to a whole other level financially because of that residual income. So Taylor grew up with mom and dad always being home. She'd come home, and there was always a snack on the table that was really important to her. We were at every swim meet. We were at every tennis match. We were there to help with homework and to be a part of that. I never really thought about the fact about how she perceived that, and I'll let her tell her story, but that's how we ended up working together. She had a great job right out of college, but from her perspective, she was working all the time, and she had seen her parents work from home, and she was thinking, I want that. And really what it is, it's time freedom. When you have wealth, you have freedom.
Tony: It's a totally different lifestyle. So, uh, Taylor, jump on the call real quick and tell your side of the story. I know a little bit of your story, but I'm sure you'll add some more here. Your mom, you grew up with your mom doing all these things, and like your mom said, it was a great handoff of a, you got to see their lifestyle and, and as I remember, you didn't really want part of that at first. You want to do your own thing. And then you kind of realized, this isn't what I really want, where my future goal is. So talk about that and what made you make that transition to where you are and what you're doing today.
Taylor: So my first career, I went to Vanderbilt here in Nashville, and my first career was in the film industry. So I worked for an animation studio. And I remember when I eventually walked away from that. My first thought was, man, that's such a cool party conversation. Whenever you say you're an animator, people are always like, Whoa, like, what's an, what's an animator? You know? And it was such an attention-grabbing thing, but, um, I had been there for about four, maybe five years, and I loved what I did primarily because of the people that I worked for. It was a small family-owned company. I remember my, um, my boss would, I was a producer towards the end and you would have a big client call. And he would call me in and say, um, can we just, can we just pray really fast that we can serve this client really well before we called them? And little things like that that you don't usually get in a first job, but as good as the environment was from that perspective, after a few years, I just realized I was working all the time. I remember they called me in their office once. We were such a small company that we had never had a career ladder before, and they said they were so excited and my annual review to share, to share with me what my career ladder was going to look like. And I remember they were so excited and I was immediately deflated, when I saw like where, you know, ten years from now, this is the most I'll ever earn at this company. And I'm already stressed out, and I'm already, um, I'm towards the bottom. Um, I can only imagine, you know what my stress levels would look like that the top of this ladder only ever being worth that much. And that was the day where I realized, um. That it just wasn't going to add up as much as it was a great time for me during those few years. And I'm so thankful that I had it just in my, it wasn't going to go where I wanted it to go, and it didn't line up with the lifestyle that I had that my mom kind of shared about. So...
Tony: Yeah, you weren't in control of your income.
Taylor: Right.
Tony: And I think someone else is in control no matter how hard you work, someone else is in control of what you're able to make. And I think that's what, you know, that and the freedom, what you shared with me, 'cause you're a want-to-be world traveler right.
Taylor: In some ways, yeah, I do like to travel.
Tony: And so I don't think, I think one of the things you shared with me was that you weren't going to be able to travel like you wanted to. So that lifestyle, that difference in lifestyle versus the, what we call the j-o-b lifestyle, which is, you know, you go and work for somebody else, they tell you what you get to make, and they tell you how much time you get to take. But, uh, I think that's what's a beautiful thing, uh, Beth, about what you modeled for Taylor and you know, your other children is, you know, I grew up, you know, watching my mom and dad work a lot. Sometimes my mom was working a hundred hours a week in a convenience store, had been robbed several times at gunpoint. But that's the model that she went, that I grew up with. You know, hearing her about getting a gun, put on the tip of her, her nose after one robbery. And I'm like, how do you go back to work after having that happen to you? But she needed to provide for the family. And that was the only model that her and my dad knew was the j-o-b model. So I think having that, that crazy freedom that you two both have and what you're kind of seeing for your really, your children too. Right. And so modeling it and pass it along.
Beth: How did that make you feel knowing your mom was experiencing that.
Tony: I think I was, um, I don't know. I think it's just like shock. It's kind of like you're watching a show or something, and it's like, did that really just happen? And you know, when you're a third party, and you're hearing like your mom share that to you as a teenager, you're like, Oh, that's interesting. And I don't think it is till I was an adult that I really processed, you know, the sacrifices that she made for me and really took that to heart. Like, you know, that's wow, she, she sacrificed so much for me. And she had a good-paying job for her, you know, education level that she was at, and they were able to provide a lot for us. And then, you know, my dad only had a 10th-grade education.
Beth: Well, it's interesting how much as parents um, we do, we just don't realize the impact that we have on our, on our kids, and that they really are watching, you know, in one way or another. Something else that, um, Taylor picked up from me. In between the MLM gig and the non-MLM big gig. Um, you know, I was kind of getting bored a little bit, and this is back during the real estate boom. So this is Spring 2002, and I decided to purchase some townhouses in Northern Virginia and, and uh, we use them as rental property, and I held them for a couple of years, and then I could tell the market was starting to kind of wane a little bit. So I sold them in, I sold them at a wonderful, wonderful profit. Taylor evidently was paying attention to that. So when she was—realizing that she wasn't uncomfortable with this career that she had. One of her thoughts was, and this was really a smart thing, she, I mean, she wanted to purchase her own home. Then not many 23-year-olds purchase their own home, and I'll come back and tell you kind of how that took place. She bought her first home at the age of 23, and she was really smart. That she knew she wanted to be able to rent out the two of the bedrooms, which is perfect because basically, that rent pays for that mortgage. Her expenses are very, very low. So that one decision, she was building her own wealth through real estate, and then before she ended up partnering with me, uh, that's where she decided, you know, I'm going to get an Airbnb market. And so she bought a home that was a new construction home and converted that into an Airbnb. And so that's another step. That's an appreciating asset that she's done to start to build her wealth at a very young age. One of the things that Russ and I did, as most parents do, you know, we saved and we put, put aside quite a bit of money for Taylor and Kristen's college education. We weren't going to dictate where they went to school. I didn't want to say, I'm sorry, honey, we can't afford that school. So we worked really hard to put money aside and back in those days of the cheeseburgers. But anyway, so as it turns out because I had made this good career choice and I worked really hard to be successful very quickly, I remember my very first month. I remember praying for guidance in terms of what to do, you know, with, I needed some personal goals, and we were able to do some really fun things for people, which we'll talk about. But from our, my family's standpoint, I remember setting a goal. I want to be able to pay for Kristin and Taylor's college education. Even though that was funded, I wanted to be able to pay for it with a check, so we never had to tap their college funds. And then when they, and Ross probably told you the story, but when they graduated from college, he made this big production. They didn't even know they had a college fund. And so when they graduated from college individually, he did a kind of Price Is Right kind of game where they had to guess what their gift was. And we were able to give them this very significant amount of money. And that's how Taylor was able to buy not one home, but two before the age of 25. So, um, you know, when you work hard and you, and you do make some sacrifices, but you've got to have it all that plan to be able to do that makes a big difference.
Tony: Yeah. Taylor, talk about that just a little bit because, um, in the world that we live in today, like rental rates are at their highest ever. Like, I think it's 35 or 36% of homes are rented. Like people are renting, and it's a really high number, uh, statistically, and then when I talk to most 20-year-olds, they're all renting, and they're scared of homeownership. So what would you say, like your process, you went through there, and you're obviously doing it right. Uh, but finding a way to supplement your income, uh, by having a home. So, talk about what you're doing.
Taylor: Yeah. And I, I was renting for a while, um, and that's kind of eventually, I think. When you're renting you, eventually, you start to realize, wait, what did I pay that that check every month? Where does that go? Like I'm just throwing it out the window, and that just led to questions. But mom, I don't know that I ever really told you that side of the story after the Price Is Right production. Kristin, my sister called me, she's older, so she had already been through that. She knew that was coming for me. She said, so like, what do you think? Like, did you have any clue? And I was like, I feel like, a weight was just handed to me. Like I felt like the burden, cause I didn't have any concept of money. I didn't have like money management. I didn't know what to do with it. And I just felt I remember feeling like I was supposed to be really excited and I was like, I don't know what to do with it.
Beth: Mmhmm.
Taylor: And so I let it sit in a bank account doing nothing for years. And then as I started to have those questions about, wait, I'm paying this person rent, where is this going? I just started to ask questions. And then eventually that led to me thinking, well, what if I. What if I owned my own house, wouldn't I keep that money ultimately? And what if someone else rented a room and it just led one thing led to another, you know, and I just put one foot in front of the other and there I was.
Beth: Yeah, when we gave that money to them, though, part of our condition was to let us be that sounding board and guiding for them because you don't want it then to just go blow it. But we, and we would have never have given Kristen and Taylor this sum of money had we not known. First of all, they're very responsible young women. And number two, they were going to allow us to be able to help steer their ship until they knew more what to do from an investment standpoint. Cause yeah, I can see that. That would be scary. So, yeah.
Tony: Well, I think that's great. So Beth, you and Russ, I don't know if you remember the exact date, but it was a point somewhere along the journey where you crossed the million threshold where your net worth was a million dollars. Do you remember roughly when that happened?
Beth: I don't really remember when that would have happened when that happened, but I would tell you it's probably in the early nineties. I would say, because it was when we had this business, Russ' business because that's when we really started to acquire profits from this business. You know we, we even started our own 401k, and that was a very smart move. We had our own 401k, and Russ was very good about investing it in T-bills was another big, big thing. So I would say probably early to mid-nineties when we crossed over that million-dollar mark. Now we would be in multiple area in terms of multiple-millions in regards to our net worth. And that I think is a really big thing is, is that net number. I've just, I've always been a bottom-line kind of girl, even when Russ would get excited about certain stocks and how great it was doing. I'm like, you know what? I can't get excited about it because until you sell, it could always go down. I'm just a bottom-line kind of girl, so yeah. But I would say it's probably in the mid-nineties we'd been married probably 10 to 10 to 12 years or so, I would guess.
Tony: Oh, awesome. And so now that you've taken that wealth, and one of the things, I don't know you guys do, you have a real desire to sow into people and to see people's lives improved. And so it's not just about making money for you or having a successful business, but you're like really wanting to help other people find success. And so you're taking that wealth and doing some things with it. Tell us a little bit about what you're doing with it.
Beth: Well, when I first started my current business, the one that Taylor and I do together again, prayerfully, I thought, you know, Lord, show me what to do. I was going to tithe my income. There was a couple in our family. He had become a quadriplegic years before he was a contractor and fell off a roof. We, as a church, had a fundraiser, and we reconfigured his home to accommodate the wheelchair and got him a conversion van and all of this. And I was singing in the choir and one night, around this timeframe I went early, and he was there. So we were visiting, and I learned in that conversation that financially they were really struggling, and even though we had this fund for him, no one was contributing to it anymore. And they were going to probably have to sell their house, and they were very proud people. And so I thought, that's it. I am going to tithe my check. The first month I tithed, it's $580. The second month the check was $640, and then it was 800 and something. Then it was over a thousand and so ten months goes by and I remember my, my income was $16,000, and so I wrote a $1,600 check. And as I was writing that check, I remember thinking, and which I feel it was God speaking to me, I wonder if they need all that money. And so I called the church, and the church secretary said, I can't believe you just called, she just left here. She called us because this was my condition. I should have told you this in the beginning. I didn't want them to know where it was coming from. I was giving it to the church for them to put in the fund, but they were not to know who was funding it cause they wouldn't have accepted it.
She came in, and she said she wants us to know that they're out of trouble, and the most she'll take is $500, so you're going to have to find somebody else to help. And so I love to do that kind of thing where you don't get any credit for it. To me, that's the best kind of blessing. And Taylor has done that too, in a way, and it just warms your heart so much.
So to be able to do the little things for people, that was big for them. Little to us, but it was big for them. Just where you can take the edge off of that. Russ and I like to make those types of contributions. We do the same with you; we've been involved with some different orphanage organizations. Of course, we love Compassion International, but there's Hope for Haven here in Southwest Florida that we've gotten involved in, and we love them because of their work with orphans. Even our company has an orphanage that we contribute to down in central America so that our heart is there for sure. At this stage in our life, quite honestly, in addition to helping others less fortunate, there's two things that I really liked to focus on. Number one is I really try to teach other people how to have it themselves, and that's one of the reasons why I think Taylor and I love what we do so much is it's not about us. It's about helping other people be able to have that kind of freedom that wealth provides, you know, and, and helping other people do that because then it provides a tremendous amount of quality of life. And, and especially if I can help bring a mom home so she can stay home with her kids, you can't put a price tag on that. But the other thing that at this stage in our life is, you know, we want to be able to continue to pass that legacy down. You know, we want to be able to, you know, help our children. Uh, our, our oldest has twin five-year-olds, and she just adopted a newborn baby boy. She's a stay at home mom. So when, when you have a one-income coming into the household, and you've got a lot of expenses, so the children, we've helped them sign to a private Christian school for them next year, but the tuition is $9,000 a year. They wouldn't be able to afford that. So, you know, for us to be able to assist and those sorts of things, it's, that's, that's what we feel we're here for. And to help them have that quality of life. That's kind of where our heart is in terms of helping other people not getting the glory for it, helping empower people so that they can do it themselves and pass that on. Helping that little guy, and then, of course, family passing the legacy.
Tony: Yeah. I think that's the great thing about having wealth, and I think for people that are on their journey to try to build wealth, and you know, cross that million-dollar mark is you just are so much more empowered to be able to help more people. That's really what, if you have the right heart, the more money you have, it's not really all just all for you. It's for helping other people. And I think that's the beautiful thing about aspiring to build wealth. The more wealthy people there are, the more people that need help get it. And I think that's exciting. Taylor, now you, uh, you're on your journey to become a millionaire. You're not quite there yet. Hopefully, the next, uh, what did we say 12 months or so?
Beth: Um,
Tony: Maybe that's a look that's a little aggressive, but who knows, right? But you also were trying to, for the money, the limited funds that you have right now as you're building your business, you actually have some things on your heart to do you want to share any of those and what you're trying to do.
Taylor: Yeah. Um, and I think for me, just like as far as that path is concerned, you know, crossing over that threshold, um, isn't necessarily, um, for me the driving factor, I think, cause for me just sitting where I am, you know, I'm single, unlike my sister, I don't have kids. And so my future, what my future's going to look like is kind of in question a question mark.
And so I do want to have a specific target at some point, but I'm also. Kind of learning about what do I want that target to be? Just depending on what my life continues to shape up into being, you know? But as whatever that target is, you know, I was just raised with, you know, what you've heard my mom talk about, which is the first thing you do is you give. And so, you know, that's something I've always believed in, is to make. Tithing and giving a priority before, before you necessarily have reached your goal, I guess. Um, cause I, I heard somewhere, I think it was in a sermon once that giving gets harder as you acquire more, a percentage is a, is this a more significant sum of money when your income is higher? And so you should create those habits when you have less. Um, and then that way, it kind of creates the habit as your income grows. And. It's the same percentage, perhaps, but you're writing a much bigger check because you have more finances, but you already have that habit that's been kind of instilled in you from the beginning. And so I'm working on creating those habits in myself. I've always, have a memory of me as a kid with like a piggy bank with like a couple of hundred bucks in it, I don't know, or maybe a hundred bucks in it. I don't know where that money came from, but I, I gave it to somebody, like I didn't spend any of it on myself. I gave it to someone at a church that I was connected to. It was a couple of going on a trip or something. I don't even really remember. I didn't know who they were, but I gave it to them.
Tony: That sounds like it was like a very wealthy tooth fairy, Beth.
Beth: I've gotta tell you, Russ sometimes did, does not understand boundaries. Yes. That was kind of hard to explain, so yeah, he was, a little spoiling sometimes.
Taylor: So little things like that, or when I reached a big milestone in my business, now, you know, I honored that by, I gave a significant portion of it away just by asking around in my community for different needs. And you know, there was a lady who was leaving in an abusive relationship, and so I put her up in a hotel for a night. There was. Um, a friend, well, I actually didn't know her, but she told me a story about her mom. Her mom had had a tough background, and so I filled her fridge with organic groceries cause she probably decides on the cheap stuff usually. And so what a treat to come home and have like the nice cheese and organic food. And I bought her a massage and stuff that wasn't necessarily super practical, but you know, just hopefully it would help her have a better day that day. And, um, little things like that. Just to... And for each of my big milestones, I hope to do something like that, but a little bit bigger each time.
Tony: Yeah, that's wonderful. I think that's great. And I think it's a lot of wisdom when you say, uh, when you don't have that much money, just develop the habits. Because I do, I would say it's probably harder for most people. And if you look at like giving statistics, um, the ratios is for the, your, you know, your really wealthy people. It's not a great ratio. So yeah, I would love to see more people with generous hearts, not more people with possessive hearts, I guess, to try to keep giving. So, Beth, we're wrapping up. What kind of parting words of wisdom would you have for somebody that's on this millionaire journey, uh, to, you know, to build wealth and to cross over that milestone?
Beth: Well, one of my words of wisdom would be as you are building this wealth, you're acquiring a nice nest egg if you will, and your portfolio is looking really, really good. I would really encourage anyone, don't increase your spending. You know this is the time for you to really hunker down like that. Those were the times where we've put that money aside.
We've put it into the kids' college educations because even though it was going to be 15 years away, ten years away, we still put that away. We put money in our 401k don't increase your spending. The analogy that Russ uses, and I think he's told you this before, Tony, it's the bathtub. You know, now all of a sudden, instead of the water dripping in the bathtub, it's now the faucets are open and it's coming in. And too many times what people do is they open up the drain, and it's going out as fast as it's coming in. And so that would be the, one of the words of wisdom that I have. And I have another one too, for those people listening and the thought of that million-dollar pathway just seems to be like maybe so far away, to not be discouraged because just bringing in an or saving, but I like to teach people about sort of cutting back more. I try to teach them how to bring in more, bringing in an extra 500 to a thousand dollars a month and putting that aside. Those are baby steps that make a difference. They really, really do. And, and so just understand you have that goal, and if you just focus on the activity and you just keep your nose to it, then before you know you're closer than you realize.
Tony: Yeah, I think that's wonderful. That's a very good wisdom, and I appreciate both of you being on the show today, and I can't wait to get this out and really help some people kind of get on their journey. Uh, how would people go about finding out more about what you're doing and getting involved and taking advantage of the opportunity that you have available for them?
Beth: I think an easy way for people to at least have a little bit of a visual feel for the dream that we that we paint for others and help those dreams come true, uh, we have a website and it's www.lifeonyourownterms.net. You'll see me on there. Taylor is on there. We actually have our team on there. A lot of our team members, uh, we have some blogs, but we have some videos on there. That's a good place to just kind of surf around and get a feel. And then, you know, you're welcome to email me directly at BSchomp. That's bschomp@gmail.com or Taylor. I'll let you give your email.
Taylor: Uh, I have the same last name that, uh, tkschomp@gmail.com.
Beth: Yeah. So you can email us with questions. We'll be glad to, we're an open book, so we'd be glad to help you in any way that we can.
Tony: So if you want to reach out and to Beth and Taylor and just look at alternative ways to increase your income, or even, you know, step, take a stab into the business world, and develop your own little business model, reach out to Beth and Taylor and they'll help you do it.
Beth: Thanks so much, Tony. Appreciate you.
Tony: Thank you.
Taylor: Thanks, Tony.
Tony: Take care. Bye. Bye.
Beth: Bye.
Announcer: That's a wrap for this episode of The Millionaire Choice. Remember, wealth is a result of getting smarter with your money. Wealth helps you enjoy life and help people. For resources, tools, and a community that will accelerate your millionaire journey, go to themillionairechoice.com. The Millionaire Choice Show shares the opinions and experiences of people and should not be considered financial advice. Before making your own financial choices, please seek out the registered financial advisor or certified financial planner.
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