May and Evelyn are sisters living in small town in Oklahoma. They’ve been navigating their golden years together for about 16 years now. Mae, who never married, invited Evelyn to move in with her after Evelyn’s husband of 54 years passed. May’s weathered house has seen better days.

But she paid it off long ago. Her proudest achievement. May’s always been fine with living meagerly off her Social Security and savings that she tucked away from the fruit stand she ran for decades.

She had a beautiful garden, a true expert. Canning fruits, vegetables, sauces, anything that could be made from what her land supplied, she happily utilized, saved or sold at her fruit stand. Evelyn, or Evie as May calls her, has not had the easiest of lives.

Her first husband had a sudden heart attack and passed away very young, leaving her a single mother. Her son died at 18 in a car accident with a friend. And her recent late husband had battled alcoholism and a gambling addiction for much of their time together.

Sweet Evie did the best she could with the hand she was dealt, but had too many years of emotional pain. Her husband loved Evie dearly and even with all his problems, he was able to keep a roof over their head and bills paid. But when her husband passed, she realized the debt they were in and that their savings was nearly non existent.

There wasn’t much that Evie could do other than sell their home to pay off the debts and give herself a bit of a cushion to figure out what the next stage of her life would be. May would do anything for her sister, so welcoming Evie into her home was never a question. The modest pension from Evie’s late husband, along with both of their small Social Security benefits is all the sisters have to rely on.

But as time has marched on, the house now requires repairs and Evie’s health is beginning to fail. The financial strain grows heavy. The cost of medications, health care and basic living expenses far exceed the small sum they receive each month.

The burden is becoming too much for the sisters and they find themselves facing a reality they never anticipated. A life where their means cannot sustain their needs. John’s story begins in the heart of a bustling city where dreams are both made and shattered.

As a longtime business owner, John poured everything into his small but beloved enterprise. He’d started the business as a young single guy cutting grass for neighbors and grew it to be a well known landscaping company, supplying clients with reliable lawn service and creative ideas for well manicured landscapes. Things took a wrong turn for John when the financial obligations of child support were introduced, stemming from a tumultuous relationship with an ex partner determined to see him fail.

The payments became a monthly reminder of the personal sacrifices he made for his family. For 16 years, John Wade waded through the treacherous waters of financial commitments, rising operational costs and the constant challenge of maintaining a shrinking workforce. The concept of saving for retirement seemed a luxury far beyond his reach.

Each dollar earned was a dollar spent in keeping his business afloat or meeting the demands of child support. As the years passed, the weight of financial insecurity began to take its toll. The realization he had no retirement savings at 53 is a wake up call.

The future he once envisioned is now clouded by fog and appearing bleak. Sarah and Ryan, newlyweds in their 30s, find themselves entangled in a financial situation that seems almost insurmountable. Both entered their careers with the promise of a bright future, armed with degrees from good colleges.

However, the shadow of significant student loans and accumulating credit card debt has riddled them with hefty monthly payments, darkening their dreams of home ownership and family planning. Their journey together began in college, when they first met in a finance class. And the irony of their current predicament isn’t lost on them as they once discussed strategies for wealth accumulation amidst their studies.

Post graduation, they entered the workforce with optimism, believing their hard earned credentials would pave the way to financial stability. Sarah found her calling in digital marketing, while Ryan pursued a career in environmental science. Positions in industries they were both passionate about.

But they soon discovered the cost of living, simply the cost of growing into adulthood. There were no signs of progress towards their goals. The reality of their situation set in swiftly.

Despite combining their incomes, the bulk of their earnings went towards servicing their debt. Renting an apartment in the city close to their workplaces seemed like a logical choice initially, but rent continued to climb, making it apparent this decision was going to provide little in the way of savings. They decided to inquire on getting a home loan, but found it wasn’t the lack of savings that was necessarily holding them back.

It was the debt load they carried that didn’t allow them to add a house payment into the mix. The emotional toll of their financial strain is palpable. Conversations about starting a family or laying the groundwork for a comfortable retirement are punctuated with sighs and sense of resignation.

They’re acutely aware that they’re not alone in this struggle, as many of their peers navigate similar challenges. Yet the knowledge does little to relieve their feelings of inadequacy and the gnawing worry that they’re falling behind on the timeline of life’s milestones. Each of These three stories are completely different, but yet they all end the same.

The looming fear of an uncertain for future with the past 12 years plus of my professional career in mortgage lending, I’ve heard countless variations of these stories. No credit, built no savings, built too much debt, started saving too late, lost the savings. Doubt in regards to retirement, most times being a combination of multiple of those.

Retirement for many is an unrealized dream, working long past when their bodies tell them to stop because it’s the only option they have. I don’t want to see that happen to anyone. What that fear and distress does to someone is really heartbreaking.

It’s really not even a fate that I’d wish on even my worst enemy. That’s my main why for doing this, this journey I’m on and that I welcome you to be a part of called Invest in you. It’s both my own personal growth story and kind of a social experiment.

If you would more explanation on that to come. You see, I’m working to change my future for the better and I hope to help some others to do the same along the way. My name is Dena Glasgow.

I’m someone like you and the other people in these stories that I just recounted. Someone who’s had my own rollercoaster of financial ups and downs. I grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland in a middle class Catholic Italian family.

Great childhood, no trauma to speak of yet coming out to my Catholic Italian parents when I was 19, as you could probably imagine, didn’t go over too well. Is your website as effective as it could be? Are you using it for more than just marketing and do you give it constant attention? If not, you’re missing out. Your website should assist with your business operations, from processes and procedures to client onboarding and tasks.

Your website should work for you. It should be your best salesperson. Here at Naming Creative, we work with all of our clients strategically from the start.

Don’t miss out on all the opportunity that an effective website can provide. Schedule a free consultation with us today and discover how we can get you on the right track. I was going to have to pay for college on my own, which at the time I thought would be impossible where I was.

I was going to have rules set on my newly found adulthood and they were definitely going to work on praying the gay away. So I decided it was time to go. I left home with $50 that a friend’s mom gave me, actually my clothes and my only real belonging at the time, a Phillips TV set.

Luckily for me, my girlfriend at the time Is a triplet and had two sisters living down in Columbus on Ohio State University’s campus. One of the sisters had a roommate that just quit college, leaving behind a mattress and an empty room to fill. After a vote from the other roommates, they decided they give me a shot if I promised to get a job immediately and start paying them the agreed upon rent.

And so I figured it out. I got a job at Wendy’s, started donating plasma a couple times a week. Not something I would suggest.

I was going to do whatever I could to make this work and prove I could handle life on my own. I rolled that into restaurant work until I could start bartending, then bartending until I figured out I wanted more skills. Entered into trade school in the electrical union where I was the only woman in the IBEW trying to become an electrician.

It seemed to me the fully male dominated boardroom didn’t want the liability of a woman electrician. So they offered the low voltage apprenticeship to me. I took it reluctantly, but figured I’d prove to them what I could do in the end.

That end turned out to be leaving the apprenticeship to follow a new route and go the route of a non union worker. I traveled the US for about six years visiting places that I would have never gone to on a vacation, but places that I was so happy to have ran into along the way. At that point, I actually met my wife.

Our story is a pretty amazing one and someday you might get to hear a bit about it. But that’s when I decided, you know, life had to change. I’d actually bought my house at one point shortly before I quit my apprenticeship.

Well, rather they let me go. Layoffs took a turn when the housing market crash started to present its ways and there was no place for me. But the terror of new home ownership needed a different route.

So I jumped on that train of traveling and found my way through it. In the end, I worked my way up the ladder. I became a foreman, a lead technician.

I ran jobs. I started to learn what it meant to be an adult and own a home and figure out life as it came around. And once I met my wife and decided it was time to get off the road, that’s when I started to really look to real estate.

I knew that I loved everything about it. I was so proud when I got my first home. I knew that this was always going to be something for me, but got my real estate license.

And then life decided to laugh at me again when the housing market crash truly happened and I had to pivot Once more leading me into Mortgage lending. Mortgage lending has taught me a lot in my life and really turned me into the person that I am today. I started teaching myself about all kinds of things outside of mortgage lending, investing in stocks and learning more about business and how businesses should be ran.

Looking at business owners financials and not understanding how they made the choices that they did was something that I knew I wanted to avoid in my own lifetime. So that’s what’s brought me here. It’s time to make another change.

Time to see my dreams realized and start showing people that it doesn’t matter your age, it doesn’t matter where you’re at in life, that once you have a goal, there’s no turning back from it. I’m 151 days into my own invest in you journey. What started out as a revamp of my own health and wealth and emotional mindset has become something a little bit bigger than myself that I’ve wanted to start sharing.

To help other people recognize what is possible, to help them identify their own goals, to see in between the lines of what has been brewing in their own lives. You know, no matter your background, at some point in our lives we all deal with ingrained theories and fears that were trained into us through our parents or people that surround us. People either learn from their parents what they think is the right way, or they learn from their parents what is overtly obvious to be the wrong way in
dealing with finances.

Generational financial trauma is a real thing and I hope to help people recognize the signs and significance this plays on their own lives and to help them put in the work to overcome it. I want the discussion of money, financial literacy and the creation of generational wealth to be less taboo for people to understand. They don’t need millions or even thousands to make their way to financial freedom.

I want to help people break down the barrier walls they use to as a defense mechanism when asked to talk about their finances, whether it’s because of shame, of missteps in their own, you know, careers or checkbooks, to be able to make strides to again find that financial freedom for themselves. There’s not one way to success. We simply have to find your way to success.

Everyone’s definition of success is different and we’re going to find out in my segment of this podcast what those look like. This group, Sun Leaders. It’s not only a fantastic opportunity to network with other business professionals, but it’s a way to form a community of like minded entrepreneurs who are not only gonna help you in everything that you do business but everything that your day to day lives ensue.

I’m really proud to be a part of this and I really hope that you join us on this journey. I’ll be interviewing some people along the way to hear their stories to get gems of what we could put implement into our own lives. We’re going to be having open discussions about the missteps, the wins.

Hope to really give you an idea that this is something that we can do together. I really think that it takes more than just yourself to find your way. You know, when it comes to raising a child, you know there’s a saying that says they say it takes a village to raise a child.

Then why go solo with your finances? You could definitely look to surround yourselves with at least five different people professionals that could help you. I always say good thing to have is an attorney, financial advisor, an accountant, a banker and a lending officer. Those professionals will give you the full gamut of what it takes to become financial financially literate.

But in the same breath I say that you also can find out a lot of information on your own. It’s just about finding your goals first and then figuring out the way to get there. I hope to do that together with you.

So Invest in you is going to be a little bit of investing in each other, giving the time and the energy to focus on where you want to be. So let’s take this together and see what we can make of it. So stop going it alone.

Build your financial village with us. In our next episodes, you’ll be hearing more from folks who have had their own journeys. You’ll be hearing some opportunities to really take a look at what’s in it.

Next for you, we’re going to be discussing real estate. We’re going to be discussing business opportunities. Anything that gets you out of going the normal route that everyone feels is the way you’re supposed to go.

I don’t want you to rely on 401ks only or thinking that Social Security is going to be there for you in the end. Because the reality is it’s most likely not. So we have to find our ways together to give ourselves a way to retirement, to be able to enjoy our lives and get out of the W2 rat race sooner rather than later and become our own versions of success.

I’m Dena Glasgow. I’m not only VP of Mortgage Lending, a real estate and business investor. I’m also your tour guide on this journey to financial freedom.

So I’ll see you next time. This is Invest in youn. Episode 1.

Sa.