Today we’d like to introduce you to Demelza Campbell.
Demelza, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
My journey to Parental Wealth began with what I think every adult child with loving parents fears most: losing my parents or not being able to take care of them as well as they took care of me. About seven years ago, I found out that my retired parents were heavily in debt to the tune of approximately $86,000.00. Bruh. Heart stop moment. My anxiety went to like one million.
I had immediate visions of my parents moving in with me to save money, my having to get another job to support them through retirement, and in transparency, the fact that life as I knew it (single, social and self-reliant) was over. I also remembered my Grandmother how retirement became a stressful burden for her and how financial pressure led to limited time and money to do what gave her joy. It was a long and hard-fought process to get them to even speak to me about the money and how they got there – the spending, the debt, the habits, and the expectations that we all had.
My parents were living check-to-check and struggling financially in retirement. My dad – a retired social worker, Vietnam Veteran, and church volunteer – was pulling 60-hour workweeks at his part-time job to bring in extra money. My mom, a former telecom engineer, jewelry-maker, and avid reader – was “robbing Peter to pay Paul” and continually moving money from account to account, using paper checks and the snail-mail to game the bill due to date system.
Through it all, they were still spending per usual with mom treating me to lunches and buying me clothes using her credit card. It’s hard to describe what I felt when I realized that even while they were struggling, they were still spending on credit, and some of it was for me. I couldn’t have ignored that realization if I tried, and I felt responsible for changing things. The thought of asking them about their money not only made me feel nervous, I felt like I was culturally disrespectful because “we just don’t do that.” My worry that they would never enjoy retirement, that it would be a stressful burden something I had seen with my Grandmother – outweighed my dread and got me to start asking about every single cent, where it was going, and why it was going there.
By talking money with my parents, I helped them figure out strategies that resulted in them being financially independent after retirement by being debt-free and budget savvy. They paid off their debt within six years. My dad quit his part-time job, loving that he didn’t have to work anymore. My mom didn’t stress about paying bills or finding the cash to enjoy her hobbies. It was the singularly proudest moment of my life; to be a part of helping my parents feel debt relief, build up their savings for vacations/emergencies, and plan for long term care. They even had enough money to repurchase my father’s childhood home after it was sold due to an heirs law dispute. That’s when I started to think to myself, “I can’t be the only one that needed to figure out how to help my parents pay off debt.” Parental Wealth was born: we help dedicated daughters talk money with their retired parents to build wealth.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Ha! It has most definitely not been a smooth road! The actual financial coaching is the sweet spot for me; I absolutely love facilitating conversations that lead to my clients being empowered and engaged in building wealth. Some of my biggest struggles were to get out of my own way and to develop a CEO mindset.
When standing up a business, there are a million things to do at a given point, and all of them are not created equally. I spent more time thinking about what to do next than actually starting and determining what would work for my clients and my business. I also struggled with running my business as a business and had to learn to see it outside of a family effort. Consistency pays dividends all the time. Additionally, developing my CEO mindset has been a Godsend (in the form of @daniellethecoach)!
When starting a business, people will advise you on how to operate, make money, sell, market, etc. I had to dig through a lot of information and well-meaning insight to decide what I did and did not want to spend money on for my business, how I wanted to interact with my clients, on what platform, and more. I stopped myself from seeing Parental Wealth as not just viable, but profitable and although it was rough for a while – I’m happy to say that I’ve made it over that particular hump. I’m sure there are a thousand more challenges ahead of me, and that’s okay. As I like to tell my clients, it’s a process. Find your joy in it.
Please tell us about Parental Wealth.
As the CEO of Parental Wealth, we help dedicated daughters talk money with retired parents to build wealth. I’m the financial coach for daughters that want to create a better retirement outcome for their parents and help them become financially independent after retirement or FI/AR. I’m known for being a reformed force of nature – it’s much less about making a retired parent do something and much more about understanding their problems and working with them to provide fiscal insights that they might not be aware of. That can be hard for a daughter or son to separate from, especially if that daughter or son feels like they know what their parents should do to be FI/AR.
That’s where I come in. I coach the adult child (I like to call them key independence drivers or KIDs) to better understand the needs of the retired parent and structure plans. There are also times that adult children want to go back to just being the son or daughter; they don’t want to take on the added responsibility of working with their parents on financials – this is where I come in as well.
Adult children have the ability to gift my services to their loved one and I effectively become that distant family member that is there to help build wealth. It’s our work with retired parents that sets Parental Wealth apart from the rest; retired parents have more money than they realize, and it’s our goal to build wealth in Black communities by working with our richest cultural asset: our elders.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I would have started much earlier, perhaps four years ago. I feel like I’m playing catch-up because I didn’t start as soon as possible. I would not have doubted myself so much and I wouldn’t be afraid to ask for help from coaches, designers, social media mavens and marketers. The biggest lesson learned as a CEO is how to use my money to buy time instead of seeing it as an unnecessary expense and that I can do it all by myself; yes, I can, but should I have to? No. I get to have a team.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.parentalwealth.com
- Email: hello@parentalwealth.com
- Instagram: @parental_wealth
- Twitter: @parental_wealth
- Other: https://calendly.com/parentalwealth
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