Emily Guy Birken is a finance expert, author, coach and speaker. In this episode we talk about helping people understand that a lot of the stress and pressure we feel about money is unnecessary, how she handles being a stay home parent at the same time being a mompreneur who's had multiple careers, and financial literacy.

Connect with Emily on Facebook, Twitter, or her website.

Emily's favorite gadget is her timer!

Hear it:

Watch it:

Read it:

This is a transcript of the This Mom Knows Podcast - Episode - 64

Jennifer Uren
Emily Guy Birken is a former educator, lifelong money nerd and a Plutus award winning freelance writer specializing in the scientific research behind irrational money behaviors. Her background in education is her magic as she has the ability to make complex financial topics relatable and easily understood by everyday people like you and me. And if that isn't impressive enough, she's also the author of several books, including The Five Years Before You Retire, End Financial Stress Now and co author of a brand new book Stacked: Your Super Serious Guide to Modern Money Management. Emily lives in Milwaukee with her husband, two sons, a cat and a retired greyhound. There's got to be a story there. So welcome, Emily.

Emily Guy Birken
Thank you, I'm so excited to be here.

Jennifer Uren
One of the things in the Bio that we didn't talk about was what you like to do for fun when you're not researching and writing about money. So what what do you do for fun in Milwaukee.

Emily Guy Birken
So what I love to draw, I used to draw a lot when I was a kid, and then I took a 25 year break. And then when I'm about 35, I personally book and started doing drawings every day when I would do my to do list for the next day. And that has kind of grown and grown and grown to where my co author invited me to include a couple of illustrations in our new book Stacked, which was very exciting, and a little overwhelming. So that's one thing I love to do. I'm also an avid reader, you'll always find me either with a book in my hand or a new audio book going on my phone. And I really like being outside playing games and riding bikes with my kids, they're, they're little for such a short time. So I try to enjoy that as much as possible.

Jennifer Uren
Yeah, that's great. Well, in that drawing, that's a perfect illustration of how just a little bit and practice is really makes the biggest impact, you know, so I love that that you developed it in those tiny enjoyable chunks. we are going to talk about what you know, which is Simple Finances. And so in 30 seconds or less, why don't you tell us what your blog and your books are about and who you serve through them.

Emily Guy Birken
So my blog and my books are about helping people understand that a lot of the stress and pressure we feel about money is unnecessary. That's not to say that there's no such no such thing as financial stress. Of course there is but there are a lot of it we hold on to because of have our own beliefs, our own thought patterns, our own financial trauma, emotions, morality, all of these things, and we can let go of that and feel better and make better decisions. So while I write my books very much for everyone my blog is, is generally tends to resonate with women. Which is because I'm coming from my point of view as as a mom of 40-something woman who's had multiple careers, and you know, I feel like there's a lot that I can reach other women like me.

Jennifer Uren
Yeah, well, what got you interested in finances? You know, like, is it something you just have always enjoyed? Or was there like a financial crisis that was a wake up call? What was it?

Emily Guy Birken
So I like to tell people that I tripped and fell backwards into this career. So I have always been a money nerd, I never really thought of it that way. For a long time, it was one of those where like, I knew that I was interested in it in a way that like my sister, for instance, wasn't. Our dad was a financial planner and so even as a small child, I can remember like, hanging on his every word as he's talking about tax refunds.

Jennifer Uren
Right?

Emily Guy Birken
whereas my sister was not. And so and so these are things that I just I spent a lot of time thinking about, I would read about it, I just found that found things really, really interesting. Then, in 2010, my husband and I moved we were in Columbus, Ohio, we moved to Lafayette, Indiana, because he got a new job. I had been teaching high school English up until that point. And we were also expecting our first child. And because we're just fantastic at timing, our first child was due at the beginning of the following school year. So which meant I knew I wasn't getting a teaching job, just immediately go on maternity leave. So and then for further proof, we're great at timing. We also put our house on the market in Columbus, right after the end of the first time homebuyers credits, tax credits expired. So it took us nearly a year to sell that house. So because we went from two people in the family to three, two incomes to one and one mortgage to two, I wanted to find some ways to make a little bit more money.

That's not the math you want to do.

And so I started looking for some freelancing work that I could do as a as a writer, because I was an English teacher, I majored in high school- in English in college. And I've always been a writer. And one of the first jobs that I landed was for a financial website. Hadn't occurred to me that I knew enough about money to write about it. But the financial website was willing to give me a chance. And I thought it was really interesting type of stuff that I'd be writing about. And because I came at it from a different perspective than a lot of the finance people who become freelance writers in this sphere, I was able, I think, to reach his audience in a different way than than he was expecting. One of my early pieces for him went viral, or as as viral as financial article can.,

Jennifer Uren
Right, right. Yeah.

Emily Guy Birken
10's of people read it.

Jennifer Uren
Yes, yes.

Emily Guy Birken
Well, and so he passed my name along to his friends, and he invited me to a conference it was putting together for people in the financial media sphere. And so from there, I got more clients, and it just kind of kept snowballing from there. And I at that point, as much as I missed teaching, I did not miss being a teacher. And because we were, we had moved to this new place with, you know, without knowing anyone there, it was going to make a lot more sense for me to have a career that I can work from home, than to work to get back to the classroom. And so and this, you know, bonus unexpected career fit me like a glove. So that was 12 years ago.

Jennifer Uren
That's fabulous. So that that explains your shift from teaching. But how did you - so you started with writing. How did you shift then from just writing for other people to starting your own blog and doing coaching calls?

Emily Guy Birken
So for a long time, I said, I prefer to be a blogger for hire. Because there were aspects of blogging that I wasn't interested in. And I'm still not. Finding a way to make your blog pay is not something that I particularly like doing. That's, that's not why I got into it. And so but what happened was, after I'd been doing it for several years, I realized there were things that I wanted to say that I couldn't say for my, for my paid clients.

Jennifer Uren
Right.

Emily Guy Birken
And so it made sense to you know, really start branding myself, and, you know, put out the things that I really cared about and have my own blog that way. And then as an extension of that, I have had people tell me for a long time, like, why don't you become a financial planner, I think you'd be great at it. And I have thought about it. And I'm not really interested. It's the same sort of thing. I'm not really interested in the specifics of being a financial planner. What interests me is helping people shift their mindset about money. And that's not exactly what a financial planner does. And so I was actually on my 40th birthday, I had a ridiculous rainbow and unicorn themed birthday party, 40th Birthday. And there were some tasty beverages there. And I'd had a few and I told my friends at this party, like I really would like to do this. About a week later, one of my friends who was there called me, she says, were you serious about that? I was like, Well, I think so. But you know, I've had a few bevereges. And she's like, well, because I'd like to hire you. And so, so that got me started there. I'm very grateful for my friend, Jo, because she took me seriously. And she was my first client. And she insisted the other thing I said, Okay, well, if you're, if you're serious about this, I don't know, since I'm practicing with you, like, let's let's just do this as a trade. She's like, No, no, I want to pay you like you can charge me less than you're planning. She insisted on paying me.

Jennifer Uren
Let's make it real. Yeah.

Emily Guy Birken
Yeah. And, and it's kind of gone from there, where it's my first few clients, were all people I knew personally. But at this point, I am fielding clients from all over the country. And what I really like about how I set up the way that I do coaching is unlike a lot of times, when you think coaching, you think you pay for six months, for you know, and you meet, you know, twice a month or something and you get homework in between that that's how coaching is, I didn't want to do my coaching that way, what I do is someone will call me generally with like a specific issue. For instance, someone's trying to decide what to do with their student loans, do they, do they refinance with a private lender? Or does it make more sense to to keep it with a federal, and what is going to be options if they do one or the other. Or someone will be trying to decide, is declaring bankruptcy the right thing to do? Or is there a way forward considering the financial issues. And so what I do, often, the coaching is only about two or three hours worth of work, I usually do about an hour phone call where we, you know, establish the situation what's going on. And then I'll do research and a write up with not they're not recommendations, because I'm not in a position to be able to make recommendations, but to say, here are your options. So with the loan,

Jennifer Uren
These are factual.

Emily Guy Birken
If you want to stay with the with the federal loans, these are your options for repayment, this is probability of forgiveness, this is what you can expect with the COVID Pause. And this is how much you'll end up paying in interest over time. And this is if you switch to a refinance, and so on, so forth. And so what I'm doing is something that the people generally you can do that yourself, this information is available, it's just people get paralyzed. And the idea of trying to make a decision can seem overwhelming. And so to receive a spreadsheet from me, that has all laid out in black and white, with you know, this is, these are your options, this is the one that's going to cost the least this is the one that's going to take the least amount of time, this is the one that that is going to have the best chance of getting some amount forgiven, you know, all of those different options. And then from there, you can make your decision, rather than feeling like you have to do the research and then make the decision which can make anyone feel paralyzed and want to stop dealing with it at all.

Jennifer Uren
Right? Because there it's not apples to apples all the time. And sometimes, you know, freeing up cash flow is more important than keeping it a short term, you know, like and, and when you are only looking at one sliver, it's really hard to compare because,

Emily Guy Birken
Yeah,

Jennifer Uren
Yeah,so that's excellent. Well as moms and mompreneurs, it can often it can easily feel like when we say yes to something business related we're saying no as parents. So when it came to integrating your home and family with your business, what were your main priorities, the places that you really wanted to focus your energy? And what were the struggles that you faced trying to keep those things top of mind as a - top of mind- there we go as an as a mompreneur.

Emily Guy Birken
For me the hard part was recognizing that having the kids when very little when they're very little, having the kids in daycare meant that I was present when they were at home. And that was that was something I had to do some trial and error to learn and figure out. Because early on, I started freelancing in November 2010, my eldest was born August 31 of that year. So he was still very tiny, too small to go to daycare or anything like that. And he was still in the nap for two hours. That worked great. And then it stopped working. You know, once he got a little bit a little bit older, and recognizing like that, investing in having him in daycare, both financially and emotionally, was so much better for him and for me and for family as a whole, than trying to make it work with him at home with me. And so, so that's what I've been trying to do throughout. And, you know, it's, it's, as I said, trial and error, it's not always right. But recognizing, when I am with my kids, I'm with them. And when I'm working, I'm working. And so that way, I don't feel that, that pressure to be doing both at the same time. And that was particularly tough during the lockdown for the early lockdown pandemic. But it's something that has been, I feel like has been really helpful. For one thing, the kids respect that I am and a working parents, not that stay at home moms aren't working parents, they definitely are. But they understand that there are some times where it's like, okay, Mom has her office door closed. So now's not a good time. But I try, I try to do as much as I can to keep my work time confined to when they're at school or at camp. So that they they know that I'm there with them when it's when it's family time. And I'm in my office when it's work time.

Jennifer Uren
Yeah, yeah, no, I think that's excellent. We often approach things one school year or one semester at a time, what is it going to look like this semester? Because needs change. But I think that's really, that's freeing, that's great permission for people to say, this is a clear way to put a boundary in place without sacrificing either side of the equation. So I think that was really, really smart. Because we are afraid as moms, I think a lot of times when we're stay at home moms building a business, to say I'm going to put my kids in daycare, we think that's reserved for moms who work outside of the home. And that's actually a really good to a member of our mom team, you know?

Emily Guy Birken
Yeah, yeah, it's, I feel like not only was it was it good for me in terms of protecting my time. It also was good, because it made sure that I didn't dilly dally, you know, it's very easy to get stuck on Facebook, or, you know,

Jennifer Uren
But when you've got two hours...

Emily Guy Birken
You got two hours, and then the baby comes home, you got to get your work done. And then I think it was also my, my eldest did not want to be in daycare for a while. And so like I had that, like, you know, turn the knife moment every day where I'm dropping him off and he's upset. And then one day there was a day where they have one of those little what he called us this little, like wagons that have like space for six babies.

Jennifer Uren
Oh, yeah.

Emily Guy Birken
And he loves going in that. And so I when I dropped them off, they're about to take a walk with that. And so like they strapped him in and he's giving he's going I was just, it made me my heart itch. And it also made me feel like you know what, this is actually good for him too. Because he's learning that there's, there's other safe places and fun places to be. And that mom will always come back. And this is this is a good lesson for him even as a tiny baby to be figuring out and learning how to be with friends.

Jennifer Uren
Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's, that's a gift. That's great. So we live, we live in this instant gratification world, I see this with my kids with everything for sure. You know, and I have to say that like Amazon has not helped this at all. But even ads on Instagram and Facebook, you know, they offer these astounding results. And so it seems like we as a society are now in general just focusing on the end result happening now and not the process to get there. So I love your drawing illustration, no pun intended, because, you know, it took you a little bit of time to get there. It wasn't overnight that you do in your book. So how how does this relate to you know, how we behave when it comes to money this, you know, everything's easily attainable. But especially when it comes to saving and investing and investing because a lot of people really think you have to have a chunk of money before you can invest so how does that all relate when you talk with people?

Emily Guy Birken
That's one of the hardest things to learn, because that's that instant gratification is we all feel it. And what I tell people is to find a way to enjoy the journey. So, a good example of this is, and is a little easier for me to explain is with writing. So as I said, I've always been a writer. From the time I was very, very small. I knew I wanted to write books. And the thing is, there is this sense that like, once you have a book published, you wake up that morning, your skin is clear,

Jennifer Uren
right?

Emily Guy Birken
all of your exes are jealous of you, the skies part, the sun shines,

Jennifer Uren
and you have no more worries.

Emily Guy Birken
All of your problems are fixed. That's right. And no, that is not true. And so not only does this publishing a book not solve all your problems, it does not make you rich. That's not a reason to write books.

Jennifer Uren
It creates new problems.

Emily Guy Birken
Yes, it is. It is simply one stage on the journey of being a writer. And so for me, it's easier to recognize, like, why am I doing this writing? Well, because I love it, because I feel compelled to do it. Because on every single day, when I show up at the page, I want to put my words down. And so yes, I want to write a book that is, you know, a runaway best seller, and Oprah has me come to her house and tells me she loves it. And like, I will not say no if that ever happened, right. But every single day, I get joy out of putting words on paper. So when it comes to money, that's a little harder, because very few of us are like, Yay, I'm sending $10 to my 401 K, it doesn't have that same sort of joy that you feel from like drawing or writing or you know, something creative. But if you can find a way to enjoy the journey, find a way to make those little moments, something that you celebrate, then that is going to have this huge effect down the line. Because for one thing, you are doing these little moments, and you can just do the, you know, like even get a sound effect on your phone for what like anytime you move money into your 401 K or anytime you decide not to buy something that you are thinking about, you pull out your phone and go "woohoo"

Jennifer Uren
Something happy, not like a woosh.

Emily Guy Birken
One of my favorite things, my sister has an Amazon Echo. And so and she calls a computer and she'll say, hey, computer, how am I doing? And it goes, "Tracy, you are crushing it." I think you know, if you've got like an echo or one of those or Siri you can, when you move money aside or you decide not to buy something, you can program it. So when you say I didn't buy something I wanted Siri'll be like "you are crushing it."

Jennifer Uren
I love it.

Emily Guy Birken
Have with those little things, little victories and you'll you'll look forward to having more of those little victories. And then an amazing thing happens is as you have the little victories, you know, six months a year, four years down the line, you'll be like holy cow, look how much better I'm doing, look at what my 401k is, look how my investments are growing. Look how my credit card debt has gone down. And so that's really what it comes down to is instead of focusing on the big end result, find something a little something that you can do on a daily or weekly basis that you're going to like and look forward to doing and make part of your general process.

Jennifer Uren
Okay, that's great advice. Now, and that's, that's good advice, because everyone can do that. But everyone does have a different situation we have different income, different costs of living different family sizes, different challenges, and I know from experience that a lot of the finance books tend to be a one size fits all and they don't take into account things especially like irregular self employed income or sizable medical debt because you know, you had a huge deductible. So what is your approach for taking a perfect-on-paper plan and making it adaptable for real life when it's not? It's not all neatly lined up like that?

Emily Guy Birken
Yeah, not everyone gets a biweekly paycheck, right? Yeah. So what I want people to to think about if they have irregular income, is what's gonna work best for them. So that's, that's always a part of it, rather than we tend to kind of scramble behind. You know, we tend to reactive like, oh, I, you know, I have a huge month this month. And so that's great. I'm gonna pay for the plumbing that we needed. And like, you know what, steak dinner for everyone and the staff and the other. And then the next month Oh, there's next to nothing, right? I gotta dip into savings just to be able to pay the mortgage. And so it's really helpful to sit and think, in a forward way, like, Okay, how much do I need per month, just to keep the lights on, and figure that out, and then figure out what to do about when you have extra income, you know, where that's gonna go, so that it's not completely gone, by the time you get to the next month, you know, really kind of create a situation where, ideally, you'll be able to be paying yourself a salary. So for people with irregular income, what so what I think is really, really helpful is having your income deposited into savings, and then pay yourself a salary out of it. So that can take some time to build up just because, you know, depending on how irregular your income is, where you are, it's going to be tough. But once you get to that point, you can just keep a keep a steady eye on your savings account, and make sure that you're gonna have enough for that regular paycheck that you're giving yourself. That's the first aspect of it is when there's this perfect on paper setup. You can recreate that even if you have a different situation, it just takes more steps.

Jennifer Uren
Okay,

Emily Guy Birken
And so recognizing that it's going to take those more steps and sitting down and figuring out how to do that. And a lot of people will avoid that. Because they're like, oh, that sounds so stressful. I don't want to do that. And that's fine. What I what I invite people who feel that way to think about is, is it actually more stressful to sit down and make those decisions? Or is it more stressful to be putting out fires when the regular income is crashing rather than rising?

Jennifer Uren
Right, right.

Emily Guy Birken
And so And for most people like oh, yeah, yeah, I don't like those fire putting out moments like there's a really awful. So it's, it's a way of being free of those kinds of stressors. It may feel stressful to sit down and do it, but it has it frees you up in the future. And then the other aspect is that I really want everyone to understand is there is no wrong way to money as long as it's legal, ethical, and moral.

Jennifer Uren
That's right? Yes.

Emily Guy Birken
So I'm not advocating robbing banks or anything like that. But no matter how you handle your budget, if it works, it works. And it does not have to be a color coded spreadsheet, it does not have to be you know, a an app on your phone. It doesn't have to be how your mother did it. It's, it's whatever works for you. So if what works for you is, you know, keeping things in envelopes, and you're able to keep things straight that way, go for it, if what works for you is doing everything on a credit card, and then paying attention to where everything goes on the on your credit card statement. Go for it. However you operate, you know, whatever your money psychology is, and whatever the way that you look at the world is going to be just fine for finding a budgeting system and an operating system basically that works for your life.

Jennifer Uren
So let's, let's switch gears a little bit. And let's talk about allowances because a lot of families use allowances as the vehicle to teach their kids about money. And there are a million approaches to how you could do this. Should you do it? Are you paying, you know, should they get paid for doing stuff? Are they just expected to do it? And we're gonna give them money? But what are your thoughts on allowances? And how do you teach your kids about money?

Emily Guy Birken
So I find allowances are an excellent way to teach kids about tracking their expenses. And in fact, I have a children's ledger that and I can give you a link to it for the show notes where kids can write down when they receive allowance when they spend money and all of that. Now, here's why I think that's important. A big part of financial literacy is understanding where your money goes, and knowing when to expect money and those sorts of things. You know, it's very difficult to plan ahead. And it's very difficult to to you know, get ahead you know, save money invest if You don't know where your money's going. I also am a big believer in writing things down with pen and paper, even though we are going more and more to a digital digital lifescape. But there is they have proven that there is, you're more likely to remember something if you actually write it down. So for my kids, I, when we started giving them an allowance, we paired it with a ledger. And when we give them allowance we, we asked them to write write it down, which is, you know, great for a bunch of things, it helps with their handwriting and spelling, and, you know, understanding how to write dates, and math, you know, ask them to figure out like, okay, so if you're getting $5, for allowance, how much does that does that make? And it also empowers them? Because if there's a week that I forget to give them their allowance, they know,

Jennifer Uren
Right?

Emily Guy Birken
They know.

Jennifer Uren
It's in black and white right here.

Emily Guy Birken
It's there. So I think I personally think that allowance should not necessarily be tied to chores, although I have seen plenty of parents who have a different viewpoint on that. And there, there are lots of different ways to do it. And what's right for your family is not necessarily right for every family

Jennifer Uren
Right, right.

Emily Guy Birken
But I think that giving kids an allowance, and letting them fail with it is really important. Because if they fail with money, when the stakes are small, they are prepared for when the stakes are bigger. So for instance, my younger son when he was I think about six, and he had only just started getting an allowance. So to tell the kids when we started was at age six, and he decided he wanted a new Batman toy. He's always loved that man since he was tiny. And so he found this toy, and it was gonna use it pretty much every penny in his piggy bank. And so I found this toy and he's like, yes, I want it. I said, okay, alright, well, we'll order it. And then like, as soon as we hit Buy, and he paid the payment, because we were ordering it online, he gave the cash to it to reimburse mom and dad, like his little lower lip started quivering. The money's gone, really? And it was so hard not to say it's okay, honey, I'll pay for it. It was so hard to say that because I like it was such a little thing in the scheme of adult life. And, and he was so sad. And he was going back and forth. Well, maybe, maybe, if you want to return it and keep the money is like, but I want the Batman back and forth. And my husband and I like it strong. We're like, okay, honey, what's your choice? Just say no. But letting him feel that loss of the money is something that's going to stick with him. And instead of mom and dad's swooping in and saving him from that uncomfortable feeling. He's not going to be in a position when he's 18 or 26. To feel like, well, mom and dad will fix it, you know, I don't have the money anymore for rent, because, you know, I spent it on something. Or concert, whatever. Yeah. So in that, that I think is very hard for us to do is let our kids fail, particularly when the stakes are low. Because we can we can fix it. Like we want to fix it. We want them to feel happy. But it's when the stakes are low, when we can fix it, that we need them to feel those those consequences.

Jennifer Uren
Yeah, and there's value to it being tactile with actual cash, in addition to just numbers on paper, because that act of handing it over to you was probably also part of that emotion, you know, because there was a physical loss, you know, money. So

Emily Guy Birken
He definitely felt the loss.

Jennifer Uren
Yes. Yeah. Well, there is probably a mom listening who is just, you know, she's feeling a little stuck. She's wondering, do I pay off - do I pay off my debt? Do I save for retirement? Do I do both? What, what would you tell her what is one little thing that she could do today to start to shift her approach to money?

Emily Guy Birken
So, a lot of times we talk about like paying off debt and saving for retirement or investing for retirement as like opposites, you know, like, you know, do one or the other and they are not, you know, you can do both. And you should do both at the same time. Because, depending on how much your the debt costs you what your interest rates are, that money is a greater cost than you might be able to earn in the stock markets with with investing. However, on the other hand, so you might hear that and go oh, So sending every penny into debt payoff? Well, no, because compound interest is this magical force that needs time to work. So the earlier you start, the better it's going to work and the more you're going to see incredible results from it. So doing both is really going to be the best way of handling this kind of situation. And when I talk about doing both, it's going to be different for every person, you know, if I, if I say like, Oh, 50 50, that's not true for everyone. For some people, it's going to make sense to send, you know, whatever their discretionary money is send 10% through to retirement and 90% to pay off that debt because it has really exorbitant interest rates. For some people, it's going to be the opposite, or anything in between. It's about sitting down and figuring out how much you can afford overall, where that money is going to pack a good punch, both for your your future, retirements, and for getting your debt paid off, and really kind of crunching those numbers. And then also, it somewhat is based on how you feel, if you're someone who just it hurts to know that you have a big debt. It is okay to do more prioritization of that debt than retirement, even if that the numbers don't don't make sense. As long as you do still do something for retirement.

Jennifer Uren
And then you can snowball the savings for retirement right off of when you've paid off that debt. And just really, you know, hit it hard, then yeah, well, that's good advice. Because you're right, we often look in terms of this $100 can save me this 14% interest, but that $100 invested in 20 years could be it's gonna be more than that. 14%. So yeah, yeah. Well, this has been a great conversation. And and as we wrap up, this is my favorite question, because I'm a gadget gal. But what is your favorite time saving gadget system or tool?

Emily Guy Birken
Hmm. I think actually, it's setting timers. I am someone who I can get very focused on what I'm doing. And the kids know this about me too. So I'll be like, okay, 10 more minutes until bedtime, and we'll be like, okay, and then 30 minutes later, I'll be like, Oh, wait, whoops. So setting timers to remind myself of things is, is really great. And it's something that kids have been used to since since like babyhood where I'll say like, Okay, you get 20 minutes of TV. And I set a timer to make sure. In case I get hyper focused on something. And so that that has has made a big difference. And the kids to this day, if they hear the kitchen timer go off, they'll go is that our timer? Like no, no, I'm making dinner.

Jennifer Uren
That's for dinner. That's really funny. You say timer, because I actually have one on my wish list on Amazon that that's it's a traditional timer kitchen timer, but when you turn it, it reveals red. So at a glance, you can see how much how close or how much time and, you know, because that's that's my other part. I'll set a timer and they'll sound like wait, what? I need more time so. Oh, well, Emily, I have really enjoyed this conversation. And I know the listeners have as well. So how can they connect with you? Where can they find you?

So well specifically listeners of this Mom Knows, I'd love to invite you to my website, emilyguybirkin.com/TMK for This Mom Knows listeners. So I'll have a link to how to get a hold of that ledger that I mentioned and then also a free version of just a page of it if you just want to try it out first before you buy.

Wonderful.

Emily Guy Birken
So that's one great way and then you can explore the rest of my site. I've got links to my books, my blog, my coaching all of that there. And then also if you want to reach me on Twitter, I am on Twitter way more than I should be. But @EmilyGuyBirkin on Twitter, and then also on Facebook. Its Author Emily Guy Birkin.

Jennifer Uren
Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you