 everyone. Welcome to our first episode of Money Talks. I am your host, Shonda Park. And I want to thank you all for joining us today. I am a business owner and investor passionate about helping people understand how money works. I am a mother of three wonderful children. And my net worth was close to zero dollars when I actually became a single mom about 10 years ago. So April is National Financial Literacy Month. And we want to go into how I was able to build up a strong financial foundation through financial education, and be able to go from zero to today being having a net worth of millions. And so today I'd like to introduce my guest Rayanne Ischevez. And she's actually a longtime friend and colleague, and the person who actually introduced me to financial education. So she is actually the main person who helped me get from zero to millions in my net worth. So she's someone that I respect a great deal. Again, we've known each other for a very long time. And I'd like to welcome Rayanne Ischevez. I'm going to have her introduce herself and tell you a little more about herself and her background. And so please help me welcome Rayanne Ischevez. Welcome to the show, Rayanne. Aloha and thank you so much, Shonda. It's great to see you. And I just want to thank you so much for this opportunity to be able to share about financial literacy. Just a little bit about my background, you know, my family immigrated from the Philippines a few years ago, and or actually many years ago, I was very little. And like many families, we come to the United States for the American dream. And so, you know, part of that American dream for my family was for their children to have a great education, right? So long story short, right? My parents always told me make sure to get good grades that you can go to college and eventually get a good job. And, you know, my parents were right. I graduated from the University of Hawaii at Manoa as a dental hygienist. And I was really excited because I knew it's going to be making a great salary. And, you know, what I started to realize though, is that's when I after I graduated making a great salary, and also with my husband's income, I started to quickly realize that we had no financial knowledge. And that's what brought me to really be curious about finances. I wanted to understand how money works. And so that's how I became a part of our organization called World System Builder. And World System Builder or WSB we call for short is a community of financial professionals on a mission to provide the best financial education to families. And so that's the organization that I proudly represent. And I've been, you know, educating families over the last 10 years now. And it's a privilege to be able to share Wow, that's 10 years. Were you 10? They call me a town genius because it actually skips grade in school. But yeah, it's been 10 years. It's been 10 wonderful years to be able to share this financial education. And I'm really excited to be able to share with the community about some of the concepts that we teach in our financial workshops. So can you share more about this national campaign for financial literacy? Yeah, so you know, it's interesting, it's April, right? And April is actually the national financial literacy month, right? And for us, you know, we don't only celebrate it in April, we actually want to celebrate it every single day by providing financial education to families. And so if it's okay with you, Shonda, if we can have the next slide, I'd like to share some of the financial concepts that we teach here at our next slide. Yeah, and then please share the importance of financial education and how to build a strong financial foundation and just the way that, you know, you are able to provide this information for me and over the years for me to be able to build up my strong financial foundation. So yes, please go ahead and share about that. So, you know, the financial, first of all, financial literacy to me is more important than ever today, right, especially with everything that's going on, you know, we talk about inflation, right, with the cost of everything going up with here, specifically in Hawaii, we've seen the increase in housing. And even more recently, we've seen an increase of prices. And we'll talk a little bit more about that as we go on. But financial foundation is one of the core concepts that we teach, because we really believe that it's a holistic approach to taking a look at our finances. Right. So we say it's like building a house or we must build our financial house from the ground up. Right. So we can see the financial foundation on the screen. It starts with proper protection. Right. So what we mean by proper protection is in the event, right, of let's say disability or health problems or premature death, we want to make sure that we can replace our income. So proper protection is being able to protect our income in case something happens happened, or we cannot generate the income, yet we still need to provide for our families. Right. So that's the first layer of our financial house. And then of course, we want to also make sure we manage our debt. I get rid of our debt as quickly as possible. And, you know, if we take a look at most families today, a good chunk of their income actually goes to debt services. Right. So when I graduated from college, I thought I was doing all the right things. Right. I graduated from college. I bought a house. Really, I bought a mortgage. Right. I had to drive to work. So I bought a car. And then in addition to that, I also had my student loans. So can you imagine a good percent of my income was going to debt services? Right. So that's why we say we want to help people get out of debt as soon as possible. And we have, you know, what's the percentage that the average percentage that people are paying on debt versus putting that money into their pocket? You know, anywhere from 10% to even upwards of 30% of their income going towards debt services. Because we didn't even, I just mentioned some of the most common things. We didn't even talk about credit card debt, personal loans. Right. So some people also have like second mortgages, deluxe, right. So, you know, quite a big chunk of people's income goes to debt services. And you tried to get out of debt faster. Yeah. So one of the workshops that we have in our financial center is to help people get out of debt as soon as possible. So I think for many people, debt can be really scary because they think, man, I have so much debt. How can I possibly ever get out of debt? And see, that's why for me, financial literacy is so important because it gives hope back to the community. Right. And through our simple strategy that we teach in our workshops, even just an extra hundred dollars. Right. Can you imagine, Shonda, think about like how easily, easily today, you can spend a hundred dollars. Like, oh yeah, just the last month, what did you spend a hundred dollars on? Dinner. Probably just my portion. Dinner. Yeah, just my portion. Not dinners. Not dinners. Exactly. Yeah. And so, you know, just with a hundred dollars, you know, we actually can teach people how to use that hundred dollars to get out of debt, including mortgage and possibly half the time. Right. So again, depending on their situation, but with this strategy, it's a simple strategy that can really give people hope because it's small changes, right, can make really great impact. And so when we see, when we can have a vision of ourselves getting out of debt and then freeing up all of that income or cash flow going towards debt now, can you imagine how people can accelerate their savings for emergency fund, right, which is the next step of our financial house and also investments? Yeah, to be able to pay off your debt in half the time. I mean, that's a huge chunk of money that can now go into emergency fund and investments. Yeah, because, and you know what I realized too, it's a 30 year mortgage, but it doesn't mean that we need to take 30 years to pay off our mortgage, right? So, you know, that's again, going back to people feeling confident that they have the knowledge and the resources to help them get to that position much faster. Right. So tell me about emergency funds. So, you know, emergency funds are important, right? We say at least three to six months of your income, maybe even more now, because as you know, the last two years has really affected a lot of people where they needed to have emergency funds, you know, statistically, most people unfortunately are only a paycheck away from Bank of Sea. And so we want to help pay people if we just set aside some emergency funds, a few months of our income set aside or a few months of our expense, a monthly expenses set aside, you know, a lot of times, families will, I'll ask them, do you have emergency funds and they'll say, yes, I have my credit card, which, you know, if we think about it, if they use their credit card, it's kind of going back into that debt cycle, right? So having the emergency funds, because we know, right, Shonda, it's not a matter of if emergencies will happen, it's really when and emergencies can be big emergencies, like losing your job for a few months, maybe even a few years, or, you know, something like just changing your appliances, right? Like, or changing your tires. I know you have to recently change some of your appliances, right Shonda? How much did that cost, if you don't mind sharing? It was in the thousands, it was in the thousands. Yeah, it's in the thousands. And the thing is, that's, I think, the most critical part about emergency funds, you know, like the thousands that we are now having to spend, it's not like it's something that you just wanted to do, you needed to do in order to be able to function in your kitchen, right? And so, and those several thousand dollars can really put someone significantly off track with their finances if they don't have an emergency fund. Exactly, yes. And the top layer for investments. And then, of course, you know, we want people to also invest for the long term, right? So one of the, I used to always say the only thing I knew about money was two things, right? How to make money and then how to spend it. And I always say I was really good at the second one. Yeah, and more money, I'm sure the more you spent too, right? Yeah, the more money you make, the more money you spend. However, I started to realize, you know, we cannot only work for money all our lives, right? That's why we need to also save and invest for the future. And so when it comes to investing, actually, a lot of us are already doing it. We have maybe an investment, a retirement vehicle from work, like a 401k, or maybe you have an IRA or you have some kind of investment on the side that you're doing on your own. So a lot of us are pretty familiar with investing. And we want to invest so that we can later on have money to replace our income, right? When we can no longer work for money. But, you know, going back to the financial house, what I realized today and what I see a lot with when helping families is that most people, their financial house is upside down. Right? So, you know, we see again, most of you have some kind of investment, right? A lot of us have some kind of mutual fund or retirement at work where we're starting to save and invest, you know, and a lot of us, I think we also attempt to maybe put some money to set aside for emergency funds. However, most of us under, I think we don't, we don't have, we underestimate how much protection we need, right? Because again, our financial house is upside down because we start investing, maybe we start to work on paying off our debt, but we don't have enough protection in the event something happens where we now cannot generate income. Yeah, I and in terms of that, speaking about proper protection, I actually had surgery on my hand two weeks ago. So today was actually my first appointment since the surgery. So I had my pulse stop right before this show. And I was reflecting on what if I was still a dental hygienist because I actually retired from a periodontal hygiene in 2020, and I know that you are a retired dental hygienist as well. And it really got me thinking, you know, had I not had financial education, and if I was still a hygienist, I wouldn't be able to work. So I was with the same dental office for about 10 years. And my sick leave and vacation combined together equal only about 15 to 18 days for the whole entire year. So being that it's already been two weeks, I would have used all of that up. And, you know, I'm out for about eight weeks, at least eight weeks or more. So if I was still a hygienist, and I didn't have disability insurance, you know, not going to work with equal not having any pay. So what are your thoughts on that and the cost of not having your proper protection in place? Chanda, that's basically that's a perfect example of why it's important to build a financial house, right? That's why we say, you know, proper protection should be our foundation. You know, you think of any structure, right? You know, like, again, a house or a building, you always see them start with the concrete foundation first, right? Because it has to be able to withstand, right? We still want the structure to remain is anything where to happen, right? To withstand the weather or, you know, natural disasters, staying with our finances. You know, it's something like that happened for your now your hand, you is your asset to generate that income. Now what happens, we just talked about earlier how most people are one paycheck away from bankruptcy, right? And so having proper protection like disability insurance. Yeah, I mean, it's there's so many professions that work with their hands, not just hygienists, dentists also surgeons. Can you think of any tattoo artists? Estheticians, right? The list just goes on and on. Yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, my sister, this happened to her recently, too. She just she used to work at a dental lab and she recently just became a certified esthetician. And so she recently had, you know, an issue with her hands cramping up and I asked her, well, if you can't work, then how are you going to pay your bills? Right? It's really that simple. And sometimes these are things that we cannot control, right? And so we want to have be able to have peace of mind. That's a proper protection is for it to be able to replace your income. And disability insurance specifically will help you to cover a percentage of your income in case it's something that will last a few months or a few years, right? We just never know. And then of course, if you have emergency funds, you would use those. Oh, what happens if you run out of your views up all of your emergency funds? Right? So that's why, you know, that's a perfect example of really taking a holistic approach to your finances by building your financial house. And we're not saying you have to do what, you know, work on building your financial house, getting out of debt, saving and investing, and having enough protection, and because all at the same time. And you know, we talked about your hands are an asset, right? Because that's what you need to perform your job. However, we and we talk about insurance, which I think a lot of us know that insurance is important because we insure almost everything. Our cars, our homes, even our cell phones. Yeah, there's foot models to that ensure their feet, right? In case something happens to their feet and they can no longer model. Yeah, that's right. That's right. I have heard of many people doing that. And so what I also start to realize is that we forget to insure or we underinsure our most valuable asset, which is ourselves, right? Because we can be saving for emergency funds. We can be working on getting out of debt and investing for a future. However, if you know, again, some event happens where we are not, we need to replace our income. We want to make sure that we have that in place as we're building up our finances as we're working on being self insured. Yes, I totally agree. And that's why I am so grateful for the financial education that I receive. Because again, if I was still a hygienist and I just had surgery two weeks ago, I would be out of work without pay for I don't know how long if I didn't have the proper protection. So I'm so grateful for the financial education and that I was able to over the years is not something that happens overnight that I was to, you know, over the years, build up a strong financial foundation and put all of these in place. So again, thank you for that. And, you know, the next thing that I want to talk about, you know, just in terms of what happened is inflation. They say that inflation is the silent killer. And, you know, we've all seen in the recent times, like the highest spike ever in inflation, right? And we see it in things like the gas prices right now. I know that I've only had my car for about three to four years. And when I was filling up the gas tank, it was about $40. Now it's more than $80. So more than double. And when we look back, that's when we really see in like inflation, I can look back 20 years and say, Oh, the mini plate lunch used to be $3. Now it's $15. And unfortunately, we only see it when we look back. But can you talk about the importance of looking forward 20 years and preparing our finances, you know, to protect ourselves against inflation? Yeah, that, you know, Shonda, that's a really good point because, you know, for a lot of us, I think gas is a perfect example because over just the last, you know, few months is really can feel the pain when we go to the gas station, right? And so and what we don't realize is like that also has a ripple effect on everything else. You know, now we start to also when we go to the gross when gas prices are up, we see, you know, the prices that the grocery store is up and when you go out to eat, we see the prices increase. And so I think it's a good lesson. And a part of, you know, we of what's causing the spike in inflation is, you know, of course, what we see happening in Ukraine, right? And I think I think the blessing behind what we can learn from what's happening is that we see like an accelerated version of, you know, what would happen 20 years from now, right? A lot of times it's in hindsight, we see, oh, yeah, we talk about the prices increase, have increased over time. However, you know, the average inflation rate the last hundred years is about 3%. And so if we, you know, continue on that path, right? We inflation goes down a little bit and we continue on that path. That means 20 years from now, right? Based on the rule of 72, which is also a concept that we teach in our financial workshops. Based on that concept, we understand that every 20 years, the cost of everything will double, right? The value of our money will be half of what we are purchasing power. And so when we think in terms of like our finances and wanting to be able to have enough for the future and retiring in the future, you know, many times they think, okay, I need this amount of money. If I make this much, that's how much I'll need half of that because I won't have expenses. Or maybe if I just have what I make now when I retire 20, 30, 40 years from now, then I'll be okay. However, we have to actually think double that amount, right? Because of inflation. And so I think it's a good, you know, awakening that we see right now the impacts of what can happen because literally it seems like overnight the prices of gas have doubled, right? And I feel like time goes by so quickly that even when it comes to planning for our future, our financial future, if we don't have a good grasp of an understanding of how many works and really just simple concepts like inflation, then you know, we can really be in financial trouble, right? So we want to help families make sure that they prepare for that ahead of time through our education. Yes, thank you for that. Because if it's a small amount, no problem, one to two dollars, people don't really feel it five to ten dollars. People don't really feel it. Can you imagine if you, you know, are reaching near retirement age and you have an income of 100,000 and now you're thinking, wow, if I live another 20 years, I got to double my income. How do I double my income when I'm retiring? So that makes a huge difference, right? If I have ten dollars, it's very different from 500,000 to a million. So definitely have to and you will through their financial education, you teach people on how to prepare in terms of inflation. Yes, yes. I just want to share some resources with you. We do have what's called a Save Your Future book, right? So this teaches people the basic principles of building a financial foundation that we talked about. So this book, there's over one and a half million in print, right, in different languages. And it has been circulated all over the United States and Canada. And so this is a great resource for people. We also have our financial education workshop, right? So this workshop is amazing. And this is really where we teach, again, financial concepts that break down how to build a good financial foundation. And so I just want to end with talking about our mission, right? With the World System Builders, our goal on this financial campaign is to really educate 30 million families by 2030. And it's a huge goal. That's why we want to make this workshop accessible to anyone and everyone who wants to learn more about how they can understand how money works and build a good financial future. All right, next slide, please. Can you share with us about the financial workshops that you provide and when is the next one and what's the cost of it? Yeah, so you can see on the screen, right, the workshop topics. So those are the workshop topics that we teach. And so that workbook that I showed you, right, this is the workbook that goes along with the workshop and the workshop, they're actually at no cost. You know, the workbooks are optional. If they want the resources, they just pay for the print, which is $6 for the workbook, right, which I think is a great resource. So, you know, I know if they have any questions about how to access the workshops, they can feel free to contact me, Shonda, and my information will come up in them. And they look at us tomorrow night at 7 p.m.? Yes, thank you for mentioning that. We have classes every Tuesdays and Saturdays here at our financial center in Honolulu. And tomorrow we're actually teaching workshop number two, which is increasing our cash flow and debt management. And so that's where you'll learn to be able to pay your debt down in half, right, including mortgage. So that's an exciting one. That's the workshop that's really popular that many people attend over and over again. Wonderful. Thank you, Rae-Ann. And please put the slide up with Rae-Ann's information. If you have any questions in regards to the workshops, the time, anything that was covered today, please feel free to reach out to Rae-Ann. And I just want to thank you again for being on Money Talks and promoting April. It's National Financial Literacy Month. And I just love what you're about, about the National Campaign for Financial Literacy. So I thank you again for being my guest on Money Talks. And we will see everyone in two weeks to talk more about money and just share from zero to millions. Thank you. Thank you, Shonda. Thank you, everybody. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.