Talking about Money with Marci Grossman, CPA

Marci returns to speak with Paula about her new app, "Let's Talk About Money," designed to help take the guess work out and facilitate financial conversations. The app, available on Android, includes over 100 conversation starters to help users discuss various financial topics, such as debt and medical expenses. Marci emphasizes the importance of communication in financial relationships and shares her goal of making financial education accessible. Paula highlights the app's potential to bridge gaps in financial education and support diverse audiences.

Guest Bio:

Marci is a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) with a passion for financial literacy. Let's learn about money and let's talk about money by making financial literacy more accessible and less taboo.

Contact/Socials:
App: https://bit.ly/talkaboutmoneyapp
Email: marci@moneymarci.com
Facebook: MoneyMarci
Instagram: money.marci
TikTok: marcigrossman
Website: www.moneymarci.com

Follow us on Instagram @whydontwetalkabouthispod

Transcript

Marci Grossman, CPA: 0:02

Marcy, please reintroduce yourself to the community. Hi, I am Marcy Grossman. I am a CPA and a financial literacy educator, author, speaker, and I love talking about money, helping people learn about money and helping people learn to talk about money with the important people in their lives.

Paula McMillan-Perez, LCSW: 0:25

Awesome. And if you are not aware, this is Marcy's second time on the podcast. Y'all know I love a return guest, so I am super excited. And I know somebody I like you always super excited, but I'm legitimately excited, like, anytime someone wants to come back. One, because I know it's going to be another dope conversation. Two, because I know I'm going to learn a couple more things. And three, because it's a gift to y'all, because we have some, like, amazing guests. And like, even with Marcy's expertise, she also finds ways to kind of, like, keep us engaged and like having conversations, because we do not, historically do a good job about talking about money. I still, at times, have some struggles. So some of the resources that Marcy has on her website that I know you're going to check out if you haven't really helped bridge the gap in having those conversations, on top of the fact that she is a wealth of knowledge, but we have a little something that, you know, she's kind of been cooking up since she's been here last, but I think she's going to share with us. And you know how it falls into the realm of things we ain't talking about, but should be,

Marci Grossman, CPA: 1:35

yep, that's, you know, it's all about talking, um, everything in our lives is about communicating anything in your relationships, you've got to communicate. You've got to my biggest thing is, I say you got to be rowing the boat in the same direction.

Paula McMillan-Perez, LCSW: 1:50

Oh, that's a good one. I might borrow it, please,

Marci Grossman, CPA: 1:53

please. I can't say I created it. I really don't remember where I picked it up, but wherever I stole it from your but so, you know, I think when, when I came on last time, I had written just my first book, which is money Marcy's guide to financial literacy. Since then, I have also put out on Amazon the guide to financial literacy, but it's a discussion in education educators edition, and that's for someone who wants to have, like a book club, or a cousin's club or whatever, where you can talk together and have that group. And this way, you've got someone who can lead the discussion, and they get the discussion leaders edition, everyone else can read the regular edition. And it comes Each chapter has some questions and answers after it to help keep the conversation going. And I know it's been used in some Yeah, and I know it's been used in some classrooms, because, depending on where you are, you know, financial literacy is starting to be required in high school classrooms and whatever else, but the teachers that teach it aren't necessarily financial people. They're just they've got their areas of expertise, and they've been asked to teach this class. So rather than give them a big textbook, it's something friendly, something the kids can walk off with at the end. It's got lesson plans. So, so I'm really excited to have that. And I've also put up a goals workbook, because when you have goals, it's interesting to check back in three months, six months, even a year later, okay, have my goals changed? Am I? Am I reaching them in the time frame? Is something about my path that should change, and sometimes the best way to reach something is to be aware that that's where you're trying to go, and keep that awareness going. So I'm excited that that I've got more offerings there, and I'm working on my next I don't know if textbook is the right way to put it, but more stories of financial literacy and stuff. And of course, I always want to hear people's stories about financial challenges or victories or whatever else they've had, because then I can share them in my book, and people learn more from friendly stories than they do from me lecturing down from on high. But what I'm really excited about now is my app, and it's available on Android, and it's the let's talk about money app, and it helps you. You know, you've seen those deck of cards that that people use. Hey, this is to encourage you to organize your house or whatever else, and you or positivity, whatever. And instead of a deck of cards, I wanted to make it more accessible and something you always have with you, not having to worry about where the cards are. And so it's an app available on Android, and you can flip through the cards by, you know, tapping a button, and it brings up more conversation. Conversation Starters. It's not it's not a textbook. It isn't a right and wrong. It's the conversation starters. Because what's right is what's right for you and your partner, you and your whomever it is that you should be talking about money and communicating about money. And so I'm very excited to have have this out there as well.

Paula McMillan-Perez, LCSW: 5:24

I have to admit that I am super excited for a few reasons that you just mentioned. So full disclosure, y'all, Marcy and I are connected on LinkedIn, and I actually saw that she was putting out this app prior to us arranging for her to come back on the podcast. And I was super excited about it, because I was just like, this means there's going to be,

Unknown: 5:48

like, a little mercy on my phone.

Paula McMillan-Perez, LCSW: 5:51

And the benefit of that, you know, especially after, you know, recording this episode together, I was just like, if she's saying that, these are going to be conversation starters, they're not. It's not going to be questions or prompts that feel overwhelming, they're going to get the kind of like right to the point and just kind of help you not feel so overwhelmed about having a conversation about some things that could be overwhelming and low key, actually high key, excited because I am an Android user. No shade to you iPhone people out there, but like all the time, the apps start with just being for Apple and then eventually tricking trickling over to Android. So I'm glad that we started out Android first. Just gonna throw that out there, completely selfish, but just downloading it that you know, we get right to the point with the prompts simple, like, for example, would you go into debt for medical expenses? For some people, that's not even necessarily something they think about, especially thinking about, like younger folks, who historically may being in good health, they don't even really think about insurance, or they're on their parents insurance. But if, God forbid, you know, there was an accident of some kind, or, you know, some medical diagnosis came up that maybe, like, certain things weren't covered for. That's not a thing we think about. I personally, I was always in good health. I never really thought about medical expenses. Never thought about like, Oh, my mom was always on some Oh, well, it's not really, like, throw them something a month. They can't do anything about it, even if you pay $10 but if you have 1000s of dollars of a bill, and you're only paying $10 like, how does that impact you? How does that impact some of the other financial related decisions, purchasing a car, buying a home, planning for retirement. How do those things kind of like intersect so even if you're not having a conversation with another person, you could literally ask yourself this question and kind of like, talk it out. And one of the things that I do a lot in my work with both coaching clients and with therapy clients is like, like, let's just have a conversation. And you can have that conversation in the mirror. For some people, that's too much. Sometimes it's just, like, record a voice note of yourself, like responding to, like, what's coming up for you behind a certain situation, or maybe when you were in a place or a space where you weren't necessarily sure, like, how this was gonna go, or that you wanted to reflect, or even that you had something uncomfortable come up for you and You said, You know what? I can't do this right now. So you have to compartmentalize and get through the rest of your day or your task. And then when you came back to it, you might have broken down a little bit, or you might have allowed yourself room or space to identify what's coming up for you. And these are all things that like ran through my mind as I was going through some of the prompts, because to be honest with you, and even just scrolling a little bit right now to refresh my memory, I don't necessarily have answers to some of these, not at least ones that come easily off the brain. So I guess the question you know that I have for you in terms of your process is, how did you identify based on, again, what we don't talk about surrounding money, that these were some of the best questions to initially put in this app to get that exploration started.

Marci Grossman, CPA: 9:11

Well, I started by going through the chapters in my book and other questions that people have asked me, because I try to keep some form of record of, record of, okay, these are things I want to make sure I cover in the next book. These are things I want to cover in, you know, I stopped doing my blog at this point in time, put it on hold. Everything that I've done is still up on my website. But I felt, I was, I felt it wasn't the best way for me to reach people, so I wasn't going to invest time in that. But I looked at the things I had covered and the things that had questions, and those were the things I initially did, and my goal is to continue adding questions and prompts on there as it is. I didn't start the I didn't publish the app until I had about 100 questions, because I figured people who buy cards. Is those, those decks of cards typically have 5200 cards in them. I didn't want it to be I didn't want someone to go through it in no time. So I really work to have questions, and some of them are similar questions. Phrase differently, because sometimes you answer differently, you think about something differently just by changing a little bit of of the phrasing. You're like, I didn't think of it that way before, but, but let's see where it goes. Oh,

Paula McMillan-Perez, LCSW: 10:32

definitely. And I like the fact that, not that I'm surprised, but that you were very intentional about the amount that you had available to start, 100 could feel cumbersome to some folks, but based on what I've seen thus far, is that it provides variety. I think that no matter where you are in your stage of life, in your you know, finance journey, there is something, or rather several things, that are of reflective of where like people are, and like, what are some things that maybe they should be thinking about, and if they're not thinking about it, that it plants the seed for if and when you know the time is coming up or coming near for them. And even thinking about where you are your relationship, like, if you you know your relationship with, like, your friends, your peers, your parents, grandparents, your family members. Maybe you have like, you know, your work wife or work husband, and they've shared a little something with you. So I think in a lot of you know aspects of life this can apply, even thinking about those folks that have a very deep and enriched like spiritual community, you know that they try to bring in other professionals or people that can identify how you can support in different ways, and it's just like, oh, somebody could just be like, hey. So you heard of Mercy cross McDonald, you know what? Let me tell you a little something about her, that she has this app real quick. Let me show you a like, it's on my phone. Um, because that's basically how like connection works. I'm sure you've gotten plenty of, you know, word of mouth referrals from people that have been satisfied with your working relationship. Or when you moved into the education realm and you began to put together resources, and then you started with the book, and people were just like, oh, like, check this out. Like, I heard about it from so and so. Even the referrals that I have from like my current doctor, my current therapist, they came from other people and probably knowing me hours of like Google research. But I just use that as an example, because a lot of time we build relationships through connection, and when we're having a hard time or possibly feeling a level of reluctance talking about something, if we do choose to open up, it's in a place where we feel safe and comfortable, and thankfully, that's something that you've been able to craft for us. So I just have to say, thank you. It's

Marci Grossman, CPA: 12:54

my pleasure. It's my goal. It's what I'm trying to do, is make this accessible and not scary, and give people the privacy or or the publicity that they need in terms of of having these financial conversations, you can have it in the mirror. You can have it with your book club. You can talk about concepts without talking about your personal challenge. Or you can you know however, however you want to share. That's why I felt it was really important to make questions be these open ended discussion questions, rather than be things with right and wrong answers.

Paula McMillan-Perez, LCSW: 13:34

I really appreciate that too, because a lot of times when things come to, you know, utilizing the financial lens, it's like, this is right, this is wrong. It's always, for many of us, has been very black and white rigid, I think also because of the way, like I could be wrong here, so I'm just gonna be gone my own experience. But like learning about edge, learning about finance in school looks very different in like real time. So it's like we learned about counting money. We learned about why saving is good. There have been different opinions about credit being good or bad. So I think that the traditional level of education that's provided is just very baseline. Because, yes, as we age, we do need to learn how to count money. We do need to know what a FICO score is. We do need to know what kind of consequence or repercussions will we have to face if we don't pay bills, we don't tackle our debt, we don't, you know, meet guidelines and things of that nature, but outside of that, there isn't too much that's just generally offered, like as a baseline stand alone. And I think that's part of the reason that your app and your materials are so needed, because we're not having those conversations. And another thing that I really just want. Gonna also, also commend you for is that, like you said, this these, this app. It could have been cards. It could have been like a deck of cards that, like people ordered on Amazon or, you know, wherever else. And as somebody that has cards for a lot of different things, games, therapy, whatever, I appreciate it. Have affirmation, all kinds of things. But like you said, the app being in the palm of your hand, being accessible on your phone, your tablet, you know, your device, I think also really speaks to you being thoughtful and intentional about the demographic that you want to reach. Because we're all using apps now from pretty much birth, because we have, like, kids that don't know how to talk yet, that are playing games on apps and phones all the way to, you know, our geriatric population, who is just kind of like getting on, on the realm of how far technology has come, and being able to navigate that, sometimes with practice, other times with ease, that it's literally accessible to every generation.

Marci Grossman, CPA: 16:00

Well, I like the fact that as long as I can find my phone, I can find the cards, it doesn't take up more space. It's not things that get left places. You know what's what's interesting, because obviously my husband and I, we have these conversations. We have these conversations as I'm building the app, as as I'm organizing the questions for we went on a driving trip, I don't know, maybe a month or so ago. The the app was still in the testing phase, and I'm like, let's see what this is like. And so he's driving, and I pull it up on my phone and, oh, no, that's not really good question for us. And flip through to find questions of things that we could talk about, because this one might be for more talking about your kids. You know, talk with your kids. This might be more appropriate for talking with your parents. This one might not be appropriate for your family at all, and it's situationally appropriate. It's not like there's any inappropriate questions. It's just we're all on a different financial journey. We're all in a different space, and we need different conversations, but we were able to have these conversations that we wouldn't have necessarily thought of having, just because the the cards randomly got us started down down a path. And I just after doing that with him, after everything we've already done and been it was like, Wow, this, this really could be a difference maker for some people to start having those conversations,

Paula McMillan-Perez, LCSW: 17:31

definitely. And even thinking about the work that I do and and I'm even thinking about this on both the coaching and, I'm sorry, the therapy and the coaching side, because some of the questions I would even turn, I may even turn into a prompt, because I'm a big fan of describe, like, describe when this was, like, what was coming up for you, or describe what you remember when this happened. And like, I'm just thinking about, like, the Why do you think we pay taxes? Question, the amount of different responses that's going to come on, that come out of that very well may be comical. But like, if I go back into, like, teenage Paula, the my answer to that would have been very, very different for now. I mean, maybe not, because I thought it was a scam then too. But I have more of a knowledge base about where our tax money goes. Some of it is a scam that everything but thinking about, you know, depending on the work that people do too, like how they could also use this within their professional capacity. I've had other previous guests on the show, one of which is also one of my social work colleagues, who got a certification in financial, social work, and he is working with folks in the sandwich generation, because he, too himself, has been in that that space and thinking about like how these questions could also be helpful, not just in his work with clients, but also also driving other clients in your direction based on what you do, complementing work that he does, and thinking about a client that I'm working with now who has a little bit of financial trauma, and, you know, working through the themes, and though this is not specifically my area of expertise, but trauma is, how do I Combine your materials with, you know the therapeutic CB? Well, I do DB two too, but I do a few things. But how do I can kind of combine that and also utilize some of these prompts to make it therapeutic. Because I know we have some, a significant amount of listeners in this community who are also social workers and who may be dealing with these themes, because there's a lot of shame associated with money, historically in people's families, and then sometimes the lack of education. We think we know, but we don't know. We've fallen onto hard times because of ignorance. And sometimes we do feel like ignorance is an ugly word, but all it really means is a lack of education. So there's something that we can do. So I just. Think about like, you know, the, I guess, the the implications, the the lack of limits to this.

Marci Grossman, CPA: 20:08

And I love working with social workers, working with other financial professionals, because I'm not, I'm not selling myself as a coach. I am really in that education space. So you can be an accountant and say, You know what, I see you're struggling with a lot of this knowledge. You can pay me my couple $100 an hour to sit down and explain stuff to or I can give you this$5 book, and we can use it as a way to build this relationship. I can send you off with this app so you can look at the kind of questions, and if you have paper questions on them, come back to me. But rather than me, try to give you that education, here's here's a starting point for you to start self educating and have it as a resource. I have my book available in libraries because I think people need to have experience with something to see if it's what speaks to them. I mean, I think my book is fabulous, and I think everyone can learn from it, but everybody writes in a different voice, and everybody learns in a different way. So you may think my my book is the best thing since sliced bread, and the next person may read it and just it doesn't connect for them. Get it at the library. You paid nothing. You've spent a little bit of time to download it to your phone using the hoopla app, or whatever app your library uses. And you can say, Wow, this speaks to me, but I want a hard copy so I can take notes, or I want to get my own that goes in my Kindle or whatever else, so I can take my digital notes however you want to do it. You've got the opportunity to kind of check it out first and do that. And it's the same thing working with with social workers or whatever else. Because financial we all bring our experiences and our parents experiences, and of course, they were influenced by their all of these. And we have habits that we do that we don't even know why we do something a certain way. It's just that's the way it was always done in my family. And this gives you an opportunity to step back and learn it. And for social workers, whether they're dealing with financial trauma or just financial education, because it's a part of everything money is so emotionally tied to us, how we feel about ourselves is based on on all these things. And I'm not a social worker. I don't claim to be. I can't whatever, but I can give you tools to hopefully help you work with your clients, to help them understand how their financial information or lack of information, or misunderstanding, or whatever it is, is having these decisions that that have other emotional impact continue through it. So I love working with social workers. You have a client that has a question, and whatever else, you shoot me the question, I'll help you come up with the answer. I'll probably put it in my book and and you know, or explore it on social media or whatever else, as well as help you give the answer to help them with whatever they're moving forward.

Paula McMillan-Perez, LCSW: 23:14

That's awesome, and I know the community might need to run that back, because now they know that they can reach out to you with questions. And this is a big part of what this whole thing is about. The question that, let's say, Carla from Chicago has very well, she may be thinking that she's the only one that's going through this situation and the only one that has questions about this, but she's brave enough to kind of put it out there, and that's something that you or I or someone else could, like, share, like, oh, this might have been me too, or somebody else that I was dealing with. And now we get the information out there. And there's so many situations, scenarios, fields, cultures, where things are gate kept, we're not going to get the knowledge that we need to be able to make the best decisions for ourselves, our families, whatever have you, unless we have the knowledge. If that knowledge is gate kept, we're not able to do it. So beautiful souls like Marcy, who are willing to share their expertise when we have questions. These are the opportunities that we need to take people, just in case you don't. You're like, Yo, what is she talking about? You? You that's listening right now, this is a wonderful opportunity, especially if you're like, Damn the way my mom kind of handled the money. Now that, like, I'm older, I don't know if I want to do that, but I don't necessarily know another way, a better way, or, like something isn't sitting right with me. Or maybe I'm not sure what the question is, but if I talk a little bit about my scenario with somebody whose wheelhouse This is that they could possibly point me in the right direction, or if I'm talking to Marcy, she's going to point me in the direction of a resource that can support what I'm trying to accomplish. Right? Me. Sorry. Go ahead. I just

Marci Grossman, CPA: 25:04

and so I've had people who have been willing to share their story with me anonymously. Some of them, I know who those stories are from. Many of them, I don't, and I include, I was able to include many of those in my first book, and and this next book I'm working on, I'm able to incorporate some more stories of people who are willing to to tell where they're coming from or what happened to them. And someone can read that and say, Oh, that's what happened to me, or that's what's happening to me now. And that gives me an opportunity to start correcting my steps a little bit earlier than this person did. And that's, that's the value of of the stories, because it's very hard for someone to be the first and only time that something happened. This is a big world with a lot of people in it, your story has been someone else's story, even if you say, well, but there was this and this and this and this, they called cause this. And it's a whole chain of things. Other people came from those, you know, what is a million monkeys typing Shakespeares. I think

Paula McMillan-Perez, LCSW: 26:14

I haven't heard that one, but I'm, I'm getting an interesting visual.

Marci Grossman, CPA: 26:18

Well, you know, just enough random and anything, anything can happen. And you know, our our financial stories, we are not the only people whose parents or grandparents or great grandparents had whatever it was happened to them. And then you know, the next generation and how they interpreted it, and the next generation and how they interpreted it. So there are these chains and and they continually impact us. And then you meet a spouse who has come from a different background and whatever else, and you each have different thoughts, expectations, experiences, whatever. And all of a sudden, without realizing it you're rowing the boat in different directions, and hopefully you use my app, it helps you to start having a conversation. And maybe it doesn't heal all your trauma or educate you about everything, but at least it gets you to communicate so that you're working together toward wherever it is you're trying to go whatever your priorities are, because there isn't so much of this. There isn't a right and wrong answer, and that that bothers me about a lot of the financial people that are out there is, is they make you feel that if you're not doing it their way, you're wrong. But they're coming from it from from their perspective, they had, you know, whatever they had growing up, and this and these have been the best decisions for them, and they're now successful, so therefore this is the right path. Well, I don't know about you, but most people I meet have not had the same path I've had. So why would their decisions or their goals be the same as mine,

Paula McMillan-Perez, LCSW: 28:05

as per usual, Marcy, you are dropping some truths here today, but I just wanted to briefly go back to something you said that like really resonated with me, with all of your experiences as CPA, and I'm sure You have seen some things in your career and your shift into this space where we're focused on, you know, education. You mentioned something about the fact that like you're not a coach, like you're not like this isn't the work that you do. You want to provide education, information and resources to support folks in their journey, but you could have pivoted in a different way. How did you just say, hey, you know what? Yeah, I could make money doing this, or I could do that like, but like, this is where my passion lies, or this is where my purpose is, as opposed to all of the other directions that you could have gone with your professional knowledge.

Marci Grossman, CPA: 29:01

Well, hey, let's find a couple of huge organizations to throw lots of money at me to speak around the world. I mean, I'm not turning away money.

Paula McMillan-Perez: 29:14

No, that's fine.

Marci Grossman, CPA: 29:18

I also, I feel like I have an opportunity to reach people that aren't being reached, because these people with this one answer, and this is and all my riches and blah, blah blah are really expensive. You can buy their book for 2030 bucks a pot, but you're going to look at this big book, and you're going to feel out of touch with what they're saying, because they're not, they're not really open. Well, your $5 latte every day is is what's keeping you down? No, what's keeping you down is the fact you can't get a job, or your job is making 15 bucks an hour, and you live in a place where. In no way is that a livable wage. And I just, we can't repair a system if we just keep saying either it works for you or you're wrong. And and I just, I just feel that the way to to make the biggest impact on my world as a whole is to help reach the people who are not necessarily finding things accessible. As a CPA, I have clients who can pay me, and you know if and I could take a certain amount of free clients who aren't doing well, but I've got these other guys that want my time, that are paying a lot of money, so I better be able to really focus on them, and the the pro bono work, or whatever is a smaller part, it's less time, and you're not making the time to educate them, because you've got the other people who want your time and are paying for it, so you have to pay attention to them. And so I just felt that I was fortunate enough to be in a position where I could work on, on raising up and making things accessible.

Paula McMillan-Perez, LCSW: 31:26

That's awesome, and I'm so grateful as this also as a person that you know tries very hard to create more accessible sources of support, because a lot of what we do in social work is education, is advocacy, but it also depends on, you know, the lane and the lens and the population we want to work with. But I do feel like in every community, white, black, brown, green, whatever, there can be other ways that we can create more access to services, to information, to resources, and as important and impactful as finances are to everyone, I think that this one 110% needs to have more accessibility. So I'm glad that you are one of the people that are on the forefront of that. So again, I've said thank you before, and I'm gonna say it again, but as we wind down, I do wonder when

Marci Grossman, CPA: 32:20

I'm talking to you, I just want to stay here talking to you all day. I

Paula McMillan-Perez, LCSW: 32:24

listen. I am very fortunate that that all of the guests that I have had, we have had such good conversations that like, Oh my God. Like, I have to, like, kind of keep it down, but also, like, we'll stop recording and we'll still keep talking, because that's just how good it is. But, you know, I also want to kind of keep the ball flowing. So I just have to say, because I know that there are so many things that you have and can and probably will in future episodes, contribute. But as we wind down today, I do wonder, what, if, rather not what. But are there any thoughts on your mind or in your heart that you would like to share with the community before we wrap up.

Marci Grossman, CPA: 33:05

Check out my book, check out my app. Learn about money, ask me questions, tell me your stories. I just want to make this accessible to everybody. It is. It's productive to the community. The more people that understand money and manage their debt and increase their their abilities with with money, everybody wins. And that's, that's my goal. Everybody wins if there's enough for everybody. So let's, let's help people make those decisions to to be able to take care of themselves.

Paula McMillan-Perez, LCSW: 33:46

I couldn't have said it better myself. Thank you. Applause.