In my Money Managers interview series, I interview notable members of the personal finance community. Generally, my interviewees are bloggers or professionals working in finance. In this article I interviewed Cori Arnold, an author and creator of a personal finance blog. I personally enjoy her sound advice as well as the fact that she speaks from her own experience! Without further ado, let’s get into the interview!
For my readers who may not be familiar with you, would you please introduce yourself? Who are you? What do you do?
Hi – I’m Cori Arnold. By day, I’m a finance manager at a large company. By night, I’m an author of a few books available on Amazon, creator of a blog (http://willyouberichorpoor.com), and Twitter enthusiast.
What is your platform about, and in your opinion, what sets it apart from the others in your niche?
My niche is Money & Mindset. My Twitter account and blog exist to help those trying to improve their money. I often post about personal experiences I’ve had, especially while I was getting out of debt and eventually growing my net worth over $1M.
When and why did you start getting involved in twitter and online communities? Looking back, would you have gone about starting it differently?
I started my Twitter journey last summer. My goal was to create a platform in order to help more people with money via my books.
For the first few months, I was posting irregularly and not posting the right content. I think after the first two months, I had about 10 followers, who were people I knew. Then, I started building relationships and figured out some of the keys to growing my account. I don’t think I would have done anything differently. I learned the entire time, even if it was more difficult in the beginning. I’m really happy to have the ability to inspire so many people.
Are there bloggers, authors, friends or anyone else who has really inspired you?
I read a lot of books and listen to inspiring podcasts. Some of the authors that have improved my journey are Gary Keller, Suze Orman, Dave Ramsey, Napoleon Hill, Shawn Anchor, David Schwartz, and Brene Brown.
What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced so far, through helping people learn about finance as well as in your own personal finance journey?
I’ve had a lot of challenges in my life. Realizing I was in debt of $260K and paying $15K in interest annually was a wake up call. I need a dramatic change in my behavior and mindset in order to dig out of this hole. I see the same challenges in others who ask me how to get rich or how to get out of debt. They want the money, but they haven’t learned the discipline it takes to get there. This is why mindset is so important to me. To improve your money, you’ve got to improve your mindset first. Our mindset – our perspective of money – has to change if we really want to create financial freedom for ourselves. I think this is the message I have a hard time getting through to people.
I understand you had a bit of a massive turnaround financially – can you tell us how that came about?
My financial awakening happened with two key experiences. The first was I finally wrote down (in a spreadsheet) all of my debt balances and their interest rates. Then, I calculated the annual interest I was paying. It was around $15K. I panicked. $15K of my take-home pay was going straight to interest. That was about 1/3 of my take-home pay at the time. The second event that woke me up was a Suze Orman special on TV. Suze had a woman on stage and brought out a rack of clothes and a pile of cash. Both the clothes and the cash were worth $6500. Suze asked the woman, would she rather have the clothes or the cash. For some reason, this question hit me. Of course I would rather have the cash. I started looking at my spending so much differently. I cut costs dramatically and was on a mission to pay off my debt.
At the end of the day, what is the main thing you hope your viewers learn or understand?
I want viewers to understand that anyone can create financial freedom. It doesn’t matter how many bad decisions you’ve made in the past or how much debt you have currently. Anyone can win financially when they get intentional about their money. I am not special by any means. I don’t have rich parents. No one helped me out of my mess. It was discipline, consistency, focus, work, and patience that got me out, and these skills can be done by anyone.
What’s the best piece of advice you received growing up? How did it shape you into the person you are today?
The best piece of advice I received growing up was a poem that I had to memorize as part of the eighth grade volleyball team. It ends with this: Life’s battles don’t always go to the stronger or faster man, But sooner or later the man who wins is the man who thinks he can. Anyone can win with the right mindset.
Everyone views success differently, what personal metric do you use to define your own success?
My metric for success really comes down to did I learn anything? Did I help anyone? What are the results that confirm these answers? I track a lot of things in my life, and seeing the progress in my tracking allows me to reflect each week about how I can do better. Success is a moving target for me.
People tend to struggle with finding a good work-life balance, especially these days. How do you manage? In other words, what’s an average weekday like for you?
I am probably not a great example for work-life balance. I get up around 5am and have breakfast with my family and pets. I then try to get in around 2 hours of side-hustle work (writing, tweeting, and blogging) before my full-time job starts. I try to stop working around 4pm and then run, but most days that is pushed to 5pm or 6pm. Once I get in a run, then it’s time to walk the dogs and enjoy the outdoors for an hour. Dinner and a little family time is after that, and then it’s usually bedtime.
What’s something you’re interested in – outside of personal finance?
I love hiking. I was able to hike the Grand Canyon a couple years ago, and it was one of the best experiences. We made it to the bottom and back up in a day. It took about 11 hours, but I know we could have done it faster. I’m planning another trip out there in the next few years to try and beat my time. 🙂 I try to hike and walk outdoors as much as possible.
If you had to give advice to someone who has just joined the job market and started their personal finance journey, what would it be?
Don’t under-estimate the power of yourself and your full-time job. Your mindset dictates where your life goes. When you find your first position, don’t expect to be paid well. Expect to be at the bottom. You are new. Everyone starts at the bottom. Let that be your inspiration to contribute more and learn more. The more you contribute to your company, the more they will reward you. Put in the work. Your time will come.
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed learning about Cori and her views on personal finance as much as I did! If you liked what she had to say and want to see more, be sure to check out her blog and profile on Twitter. As always, if you have any thoughts you’d like to contribute, add a comment!
