How I went from Corporate Finance to Personal Finance - Natalie Kime

In this episode of "Nickels and Dimes: Finding Financial Freedom," host Natalie Kime shares her inspiring journey into the financial services industry. She recounts significant life changes, including career shifts and personal upheavals, that led her to focus on helping others achieve financial stability. Natalie discusses her struggles as a single mother, her education in finance, and the challenges she faced during economic downturns. She emphasizes the importance of financial literacy and her mission to empower individuals and families. The episode serves as both a personal narrative and a call to action for financial education and empowerment.

• Personal journey into the financial services industry
• Significant life changes and career shifts
• Challenges faced as a single mother
• Importance of financial literacy
• Transition from corporate finance to entrepreneurship
• Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on financial planning
• Building a part-time business while seeking full-time employment
• Growth and development of a financial services business
• Vision for expanding financial education and support
• Encouragement for individuals to take charge of their financial futures

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Transcript

0:03

Welcome to Nickels and Dimes finding financial freedom. I'm your host, Natalie Kime. And today I am going to circle back and talk a little bit about my story and how I ended up in financial services with a focus on helping individuals and families build wealth and create financial freedom. The podcast has been out for about nine months now. You guys, I can't believe it. Time has really flown, but I always think it's important as I share parts of my story throughout different episodes, that I circle back and really put my story out there again for maybe new listeners, or just to touch on a few different aspects of why I got into this industry and why the work I do is vitally important to me. In 2019, I had gone through a big life disruption, um, just before the holidays of 2018. And I was coming out the other side of that. But in addition to that personal life upheaval, my career had kind of flipped on its head. I had spent about two and a half years working at a company in a contract position, and my contract was supposed to be going through the end of 2019, but they let me know they were going to end my contract in 2018. They had decided to no longer fund the project, and so I found myself coming out of a big personal life change, stepping into a big career change and starting to look for what my next opportunity was going to be. Now, I was at an executive level, um, in accounting and finance in the corporate world. And so those jobs are not necessarily stacked up just waiting around. It often takes a little bit of time to go through that interview process and at that level, too. And at this point in my career, y'all, I was not going to settle. I knew what I was looking for. I did want to step back into the corporate world as an employee, rather than continue to work from a contract perspective. I, I had always thought contract was the way to go, but I found out when you're a contractor, yeah, you get paid more, but you have to provide your own benefits, your own life insurance, your own health insurance, all of those things. And so it just made sense to go back into the corporate sector as an employee. And so I was thinking about, okay, I know the world has changed some, and I know that people have really started connecting through groups and networking on social media. It's not the old, you know. Upload your resume and just sit around. It was a lot more relational in looking for a job, making connections, and I wanted to be really strategic in the process. So I plugged myself into social media more. I started looking at different events that were coming up, networking opportunities, ways to connect with different people. And in the process, I came across what was titled A single Moms Business Lunch and or brunch. And so I thought, oh, that's interesting. I can meet some ladies that have a similar background to me at this point. I had been a single mom for 13 years, and I thought it would be nice to make some connections at that level as well, but also with some single moms who worked in the business sector and understood that part of my life as well. So I RSVP to this brunch, and my son was a senior in high school getting ready to graduate, of course, and he had already made the decision to go into the Marine Corps. So in high school he wrestled and he played football. So it was wrestling season. It was February and he qualified for the regional wrestling tournament, and that was on the same Saturday as the Single Moms Business Brunch. And so reluctantly, I RSVP'd or an RSVP saying I couldn't make it. But I asked the lady, would she please reach out to me when she scheduled the next one? And she sent me a friend request, and a couple of weeks later, she posted an article talking about how the financial services industry was the fastest growing industry for female entrepreneurs. And it just perked me up a little bit, thinking, what is this about? And again, I at this point had had about 18 years in corporate finance, and I loved what I did. I worked for some amazing companies with some amazing people, and I thought, man, back in my 20s, I really had a desire to build my own business to do something for myself. That gave me time, freedom and financial freedom and had never quite found that thing. Went back to school, got my degree, started my corporate career, then became a single mom. All of the things right. So here I am thinking this sounds kind of interesting. I want to learn more about it. And so I reached out to the gal that had posted it and asked for some additional information, and she told me she was going to connect me with her broker. So when she connected me with her broker, I promptly, promptly messaged him and said, if you sell me anything, I'm out. I just want information. And he did the exact right thing for me. He sent me his website and he referenced some videos on there. I could watch to learn more about financial services in general, but specifically from a business perspective. And so I watched these videos. I perused the website, and about a week later I reached out and said, okay, I'd like some more information. And I set up a meeting and met with him and the lady that I had originally connected with. And I did what's called a financial needs analysis. Now, y'all, if you've listened to my podcast, you've heard me talk about this before. But a financial needs analysis is where you sit down and you lay out your full financial picture. What do you have coming in? What do you have going out? What are the areas that you're saving in? What kind of financial products do you have? What does your life look like? Do you have dependents? What life insurance do you have? All of the things, and then you have a conversation about whether or not you may or may not be on track financially for your financial goals, specifically retirement. And I thought, well, this makes sense. I mean, I probably really need to do this anyway. I was 46 years old, had a 401 K, and, you know, for whatever reason, just thought that was going to take care of me when I got to retirement. So I go to this appointment, I sit down and we're going through all my numbers and and look, my financial situation was not the best at this time. Again, I'm looking for another job. I'm leaning on my savings, unemployment, utilizing some some credit cards a little bit. And as we go through the financial needs analysis, I'm just realizing I have so much work to do if I ever want to retire. And it felt a little heavy. And then we got to my 401 and they asked me if I knew how it worked. And I said, well, they take money out before taxes. It goes in this account. There's a match. Now, I, I was not working at the time. So this was actually an old 401 we were discussing and they said, but do you know if it's going to provide what you need in retirement? Do you know how you make money and lose money in that type of an account? And I realized I didn't fully understand how a 401 K worked. And in that moment, two things happen. One, I was really angry that with my college degree in accounting and finance and 18 years of accounting finance under my belt, I didn't have any more understanding about personal financial services than I did. But then I realized also, if I don't understand this, the everyday person out there doesn't understand this. What about the other single mamas who don't have any kind of a financial background, who are just coming out of a divorce, who are just getting back into the workforce? How do they know what to do or where to start? And I knew that they didn't. If I didn't, they didn't. And so I asked more questions about the business opportunity. And I found out that I could get my license for a few hundred dollars and I could start a business of my own part time. And so that's what I did. I took my licensing exam. I got my license, I set everything up. And that first year, I honestly started working my business very, very slowly. Now here's the thing, y'all. I was still working or looking for a job and I did find a great opportunity. I started that new job in May, but remember, my son was a senior in high school getting ready to graduate and to go into the Marine Corps. And so I also wanted to spend a lot of time with him as much as I could, because I didn't know where he was going to be and what he was going to be doing soon. And so when I say I started my business part time, I mean very part time, it maybe got 5 to 10 hours a week out of me that first year. And then my son went off to boot camp, graduated from boot camp. And I decided at the beginning of 2020 to really plug in and work 15 to 20 hours a week on my business and see what happened with it. I was really ready to start helping families consistently and start bringing in an income consistently to attack some of that negative in my future retirement. I want to stop there for a second, just to go back a little further into my story. And I don't know on the podcast that I've ever fully shared my whole story, but I went to college for two years after high school, and I had wanted to take a gap year, and my parents were like, no, if you're going to live at home, go to school, and I, I can say they had my best interest at heart, for sure. But instead I got a job and I moved out, and I ended up getting married just before my 21st birthday to my first husband. And I'm not going to drop names here. Um, we had everything in common And. I thought it was the perfect love story. I thought everything was going to be great. And about six months into our marriage, we had an argument and it became physical. And I told myself, well, as soon as it became physical, I freaked out. He freaked out. It was an accident, all of the things. And I told myself that that was the truth. And so we moved on. We moved forward. And it wasn't for about another year that the physical side of things picked back up. And it was it was pretty mild in the beginning. And I continued to tell myself, you know, it's going to change. He's going to change. I can love him through this. All the things. And there's a million questions. You can ask me another time about my mindset and why I stayed, but I ended up married to him for four years and the last couple of those years were physical. I was physically abused, not on the regular as in every day or every week. But when it happened, it happened and for my own reasons, and where I was at in life and what I, I felt for, for him and about our relationship. I stayed for four years and I actually moved out, um, a couple of weeks before our fourth anniversary. And then our divorce was final a couple months later. And then I also during that time, that last six months of my marriage, I had started going back to school. I decided I wanted to go ahead and finish my degree, and I wanted to go to work in corporate America. And so I went back to school. I studied finance and accounting, and I, I I met a guy through school and shortly after I had left my husband, we ended up in a study group together, so I got to know him a little bit better. He was a divorced dad of two little girls who were adorable. And so right around that time, my divorce was final. We start dating and I was remarried by the end of that year, and I chose somebody who was very opposite of my first husband, thinking in some ways it would make things different. I also quickly fell in love with his two little girls, and he was a really good guy in so many ways, but we had nothing in common. And fast forward a couple of years, we're married, I'm pregnant and getting to become a mom, which is something I'd always wanted to do. And. Had our little boy moved into a townhouse that we had built. And I thought things were good. And several things started to happen more. This time on the financial front, and within a couple more years, I realized that my job was the career in the family. I also realized I was very unhappy. And so I asked for a separation and accepted a position to move to from Utah, where I was at at the time, to Dallas, Texas, to get some time apart, bring my son with me and see what happened with our relationship. And my husband at the time was adamant that he come with me, that it would just be us, that we'd be able to work things out, all of the things. And so he came with us. We relocated to, um, North Dallas And I started working at the corporate office for the company. I was working with J.C. Penney, and we were going through counseling, all of the things, and ended up a year and a half after moving to Dallas, he and I got divorced. And so this time here I was, a single mom with a little boy that was five and a half years old when his dad and I separated, and my family wanted me to come back home. Of course, they wanted me to be close. They wanted to support me. They wanted to help me. But I realized the job market in DFW was significantly better than in Salt Lake City, Utah. And I also felt like the school system here was better for my son. Athletic opportunities were better here for my son, and so I stayed put here in Texas. And as a single mom, things were tight. Things were hard. Figuring it out financially. I dated on and off along the way. Continue to not pick the right people. To be honest with you, my picker was broken and I really did struggle in a lot of ways that I can look back and see now. But I thought my biggest struggle was was financially. Well, at the end of 2008, my son at this point was seven years old and I was laid off by JCPenney. With the downturn in the market and everything going on, I found another job right away to pay the bills. It was a horrible experience that lasted about a year. And so here I was, back in the market looking for a job, found another new job. It was great. I loved it, but unfortunately about a year in that company went through a restructuring and so I found myself laid off for the third time in five years. Now, every single time I fell into this situation, because I didn't know what I know now, and because I didn't have products to help me build wealth, to lean on in difficult times, and I did not have a healthy emergency fund because I did not. I did not know how to plan for that. I didn't have the means to do that. I did not receive regular child support. And so my son and I struggled. And there was a point when he was nine years old through this process where we moved into a one bedroom apartment, and my son was old enough to know that he shared a room with his mom, and it was what I had to do at the time. I had to keep a roof over her head. I had to keep food on the table. And so we struggled through that. And during the time we were in this one bedroom apartment, the fourth time, I was out of work. I was looking for something, and I thought, I need to make at least $15 an hour to pay the rent and put food on the table, and I couldn't find the exact job I was looking for. And so I took a temporary position, making $15 an hour, and we scraped by I for about 6 to 9 months. And at that point, this company brought me on full time and put me on salary. And my income almost doubled. Now I was still not back to where I had been in corporate America, in management, in in a finance department. But I was working my way there. And the people that own this company, one of my dearest friends, Beth, to this day. Um, also a client of mine. I'm really proud to be helping her in her financial situation, as she is now a single mom with three little boys. But at this time they believed in me and they gave me opportunity after opportunity after opportunity. And within about a year and a half, I had not only replaced my former corporate income, I had exceeded it. And from there I just continued to grow and promote. Um, I did end up That company unfortunately ended up filing bankruptcy. But I had another company already knocking on my door looking for me at this point and my my life, my mindset, my financial situation was really shifting and all of a sudden I thought, you know, I want to rent a house. I want more space for us. Now. We had moved into a two bedroom, two two bath apartment during that time frame that that 2 or 3 years. So we were much more stable. But I was building up a really good savings at this point, and I decided I wanted to rent a house, and I was dating somebody at the time who said, you know, you could really afford to buy a house. And that was something that, gosh, for whatever reason, my circumstances, you know, it just didn't didn't ever cross my mind. And I sat down that night and I ran the numbers, and I looked at some things in the area and what different things cost, what what the housing market was like. And I thought, oh my gosh, I can't afford a house. And so I started that process, and my goal was to be in a house before my son started his freshman year. We did not make it, but we did make it. When right at the point he was starting his sophomore year and that was a huge accomplishment for me, moved into the house I still live in to this day, but I wanted to be able to give my son a home, a place that during high school, he could bring his friends that they could hang out, that he could be proud of. And now I look back and I know I wanted my I wanted to be a mom my son could be proud of. And so here we are. Fast forward, back to his senior year. We're in a house, things are really stable and I find myself looking for a job again, coming across this opportunity to start a business part time, and he's getting ready to go into the military. He leaves and then I decide it's time to really plug into my business. So back to that. 15 to 20 hours a week. It is the beginning of 2020. I'm like, it's a new decade. This is my time. And then Covid. Here's the crazy thing though. As much heartache in ways and difficulty and job loss there was for a lot of people and life change that there was for a lot of people during Covid. It actually brought some really great things to the financial industry. People understood at a different level the importance of life insurance and living benefits. People were looking for it, not just responding. When I approach them or talk to them, they were asking for it. They were looking for opportunities to protect themselves and their families. The other thing that Covid brought to this industry is zoom, which is where I record my podcasts. So this is now a time where we're working from home. We can't go anywhere, we can't be around people. But we have this tool called zoom that gives me the ability to now build a business all across the United States, in all 50 states. I could get licensed in any one of those states, and I could help families in any one of those states. The other thing it gave me is I was back in the corporate world. Right. And so I had a commute. My commute was close to an hour a day if traffic was decent. And now I was at home at lunch as well. So I picked up three additional hours a day in my schedule that I could meet with clients, that I could work with, people that I could help them. And I started plugging in to do that. And I started learning more and growing more and building more. And by October of that year, I had actually qualified for a mentorship call with one of the top leaders in the company I was with. And I remember that call was so great. And towards the end he asked me what I wanted in the long term, and I talked about financial freedom and building up my own retirement. And he said, what about your time? And I said, what do you mean? And he said, well, wouldn't you like to get your time back? And I said, what do you mean? And he said, when are you going to go full time in your business? And I instantly responded with who I knew myself to be for the previous 15 years at this point and said, um, I'm a single mom. I'm a one income household. I have a house payment to pay. I have a car payment to pay. And he said, isn't your son grown? And in the Marine Corps and making his own money. And it was like somebody had turned the light in the room on in that moment, and I realized I could I could actually put together a plan and build my business full time and help even more people. Now, during that first year and a half of my business, I just the desire to help more people had been growing and growing and growing, and I was growing and my business was growing. And so I sat down that weekend. After that conversation, I put together a six month plan for my business. I was going to save everything I made in my business, and I was going to save everything extra from my corporate income. I also looked at my budget and said, what do I not need? I turned off my cable. I canceled some subscriptions. I had to, you know, I canceled Apple Music, which was only like five bucks a month at the time, but I canceled every single extra that I had in my budget, and I and I, I figured out that number and I said, okay, if I can save this for six months, I can retire myself from corporate America. I'll have six months of my corporate earnings saved up. And if my company is making at least X amount of dollars, that six months savings can last me at least a year. And there's no way if I'm building my business full time that I won't make more than I'm making now. And so my savings could last even longer as I continue to build. And so that's what I did. April 15th of 2021 I retired myself from corporate America. So now I had accomplished my initial wise. I had started a business that was something I always wanted to do and never thought would happen. And I had retired myself from corporate America and taking my time back, and was on my way to building the kind of financial freedom that I wanted. Now, over the last Past almost four years now that I've been full time in this business. Um, I may have, may or may not have talked about it before that I. I decided to make a change a little over a year ago in the companies I was with. The company I'd been with was it was a great place for me to start, and I'm so grateful for the people who believed in me and gave me that opportunity to start so I could learn to believe in myself and make a difference for other people. But I felt like there were some components in that company that made me feel like I wasn't quite the independent business owner I thought I was, and so I was looking for where else can I find that? And so here I am at the beginning of 2025 about, I don't know, 6 or 7 months into universal wealth, uh, I did a quick stint in between my original company and Universal Wealth with another company, but I landed at Universal Wealth, where I knew, without a doubt, I truly was an independent business owner, and I have every tool provided to me by the company at no extra cost. To be successful in my business. And here's the thing too. The first company I was with, I wanted to get to a leadership level where I my income would go up and I qualified for bonuses and all the things that you want. Whether you're in corporate America, you want to qualify for the bonuses your company offers. Well, I wanted to do that independently as well. But one of the things that existed was a requirement to recruit. And that requirement was built in to my next promotion. And I was sitting there two years at the level I was at, and I kept getting so close. And I'd miss it by a person or by a, you know, a dollar amount qualifier, production qualifier. And I was frustrated. And so when I moved over here, the requirement to recruit is gone. I don't have to do it anymore. And I said, good, I'm never recruiting again. And let me tell you what happens when you challenge God, the universe, whatever it is you believe in, he tells you what's really going to happen. He makes the things happen when you move in the direction that you're being called and directed to go. The blessings follow that. And so here I sit, a little over a year after making that transition, swearing to never recruit again with 110 agents on my team. And I couldn't be more proud of that. That is not all me. But a couple of things happened when I moved to a company where there was no longer a requirement to recruit. It took a huge weight off my shoulders, and suddenly what I did became even more fun than it already had been. I had more of a passion for helping people, and other people saw that reflected outward, and they asked me about it, and I just shared to him what I loved about what I did and how different the company I was at was, and how there wasn't a requirement to recruit. And all of a sudden they're like, well, can I come work with you? The point is, I didn't need them anymore. And I realized I wanted them, and most of them were coming to me asking for more information about this opportunity. And so those conversations were completely different, because at the company I'm at now, I can reach the pinnacle of everything in this company all by myself, or I can do it quicker with the team. But I realized I had a passion for not just helping individuals and families. From a client perspective, I have a desire for changing people's lives and last names by helping them come along with me and build a successful business. And together we help individuals and families build the financial future of their dreams. And that is my focus. That is my passion. Like I always tell my clients, I'm in the trenches with you. I am not six years into this business, fully financially free, yet my retirement is not secure yet. I am working and building in the same areas that my clients need to. That I'm asking them to, that they're telling me they want to. And so I get to walk alongside my clients, the agents that join the organization alongside me. I get to walk along with them and help them create exactly what I'm creating as well. We have grown to over 1900 agents in the last six months, which we're incredibly proud of, and we're not stopping there. Universal wealth will be $1 trillion company with a million licensed agents. That is our goal. Here's the thing about that, though. While that is our goal and our marker. It only happens by continually and increasingly helping more families and individuals to create financial freedom. So like in 2019 when I sat down and did my financial needs analysis. I talk all the time about how people need that. If you're listening to this podcast, you need that. And if you've done it before, you need to update it at least annually. Make sure that you're on track. Find out what new products are out in the market. See the ways that you can take even bigger steps than maybe you think you can. The crazy thing is, is when I sit down with individuals and families, they are often closer than they think they are. That's where the lack of financial education comes in. And I have the honor and the pleasure of sharing that education with them and showing them how exactly like they want they can create it. And I help people start businesses, and I work with people who own businesses. I have also had the pleasure of this last year to start working with athletes, which is a passion of mine. I work with young athletes that are stellar athletes in high school, in college, playing D1 sports to make sure that they have a foundational financial education before they have the opportunity for that D1 offer and the Nil money, or before they have the offer from whatever, whatever sport they they play at a professional level. And all the money that comes along with that, I helped them to build an overall wealth plan. I do it for my clients, which are individuals and families and my clients who are athletes. It is the same process of financial education now with my athletes. There is a deeper dive educational component to it because they are young and and we want them to start off strong and on the right foot. But the goal is creating wealth plans that can live well beyond ourselves, if that's what we want to change our last names forever, to leave a legacy behind so that in three and four generations, when I have great, great, great, great grandkids who never got to meet me in this life, they're still reaping the reward of my hard work. Let me say that again. They are still reaping the reward of my hard work. That's how you change your last name forever. That's how you live a legacy that matters. And don't get me wrong, don't get it twisted. I don't want to put a silver spoon in my son or my grandkids, or my great, great grandkids and so on and so forth. Mouth. But I want to guarantee that none of them will ever have to move their babies into a one bedroom apartment, that none of them will ever have to take a paycheck that barely covers rent and food. I want them to have options. I want them to have the freedom to chase their dreams. And I want that for my clients. I want that for you listening to this. And that's the story I wanted to share today, how I got into financial services and why that fire just continues to grow inside of me to make more and more of a difference. There are not enough financial professionals like myself out there to help everybody that needs it. And that's why I started this podcast to get the information out there, to educate more people and give them the opportunities to step in to a complimentary financial needs analysis and find out exactly where they are and talk about their goals. And don't worry about where you are today, because I don't care. Whoever you're sitting with doesn't care or they shouldn't care. And if they make you feel like you're less than because of where you are today, get up, walk out and find somebody else because I won't do that. And I can guarantee you that 1899 plus other agents in my company won't do that. I don't care where you are today. I care where you're trying to get to. But I have to know where you are today to help you build that bridge, and to help you take the right steps to make sure you end up with the result that you want for yourself, for your family, and for your legacy. So my challenge to you is if you need to have a conversation about where you are and where you're trying to get. If you need a financial education, if you need help building a budget. If you need help paying down debt, let's have that conversation. You can go to the show notes, and there will be a link to give me your feedback on this episode. You can reach out to me there, and I can provide you my Calendly link to book an appointment with me. You can also go to Instagram Natalie McPhee or at Natalie Kime, and you can go to my Linktree link there and get on my calendly and book a complimentary financial needs analysis. And it's not just that financial needs analysis that costs nothing. My clients never pay me directly. You will never pay me a dime for the help I give you. No matter how many times we meet. No matter how many years we work together. My job is to educate you, to show you options, to fill the gaps in your financial plan and allow you to make an educated decision about what makes sense for you and your family. And if you move forward with an option that I show you, the company that I place you with for products, then pays me a commission. And that does not come out of your account. It does not ever come out of your pocket. It comes out of theirs. And the other side is, after setting up your financial needs analysis, or at the same time, or when we hop on there and go through your financial needs analysis and I'm sharing financial education with you. I'm also going to share this business opportunity with you because it has changed my lives. It has changed my life. And I see it changing the lives of my business partners every single day. And I am proud to be a part of universal wealth. I am proud to say that we're going to be $1 trillion company with a million licensed agents, because when we hit that mark, we will literally be changing the world. So please, if you would like some more information, if you would like some education, if you would like to look at where you're at and if you're on track for retirement, if you have an old 401 that you need help protecting and continuing to grow. Please reach out to me. I would love to take the time to have a conversation. I promise you, there's no judgment. I promise you I will find things to help you fine tune and move in the direction of your financial goals and dreams. I want to thank you guys for listening to the podcast today, for joining me here at Nickels and Dimes. I'm your host, Natalie Kime, and I look forward to continuing to bring you amazing content each week that will educate you, support you, and most importantly, help you to find financial freedom. I look forward to having you listen in future weeks. And until then, take care and stay safe.