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In this episode, you’ll learn all about the Your Money Your Life podcast, who it’s for, what to expect and why this is my jam, passion, and expertise!
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Learn More About My Story – About Me
Read It! Welcome To Your Money Your Life Podcast – Ep. 01
Intro 00:10
Welcome to the Your Money Your Life podcast. I’m your host, Aimee Cerka After my husband and I faced three major financial roadblocks in the last six years.
I felt like I wasn’t doing all that I could and I had let my family down. It always felt like life was a struggle, like I had to work harder than everyone else, it just came easy to them.
And I didn’t feel worthy of success, until a coach helped me see the successes in our experiences instead of our failures. This allowed me to create and implement systems to grow our network by 200,000. Plus, while spending time with my loved ones, and on my priorities.
Now I help motivated women create the happiness, family life, financial security, and long term wealth they deserve.
If you’re ready to eliminate stress, struggle, frustration and guilt within your finances, you’re in the right place. Welcome, I’m so glad you’re here
Aimee Cerka 01:12
Welcome to Episode One of the Your Money, Your life podcast. I’m your host, Aimee Cerka I’m super excited to be here. And to really kick things off with you.
So first, let’s talk about what the Your Money Your Life podcast is about this podcast is about money, surprisingly, right. But it’s to help motivated women truly become the CEO of their life we want, I’m going to help you eliminate stress, guilt, frustration, so you can create the happiness, financial security, family life and long term wealth that you deserve a little bit about what to expect, there will be new episodes dropping each and every week for you.
Some will be some that are just myself talking, we will bring in some guests experts as well, because I know that there are so many different people out there that can help you truly uplevel your finances. And I want to bring in some of those experts as well to help you really move your finances and your life to the next level. Because I know that that’s possible. And I want that for you, too.
And then last thing that I wanted to share for today’s inaugural episode of the Your Money Your Life podcast, is I want to talk a little bit about, like, who I am, why we’re passionate about this. And like, yeah, like just who I am.
So let’s talk about a little bit about where I’m at now. I’m a money confidence coach, I’m helping women create the happiness, family life, financial security and long term wealth that they deserve. I’m married to my best friend, I’m Mama, I’m a mom of three. At the time of this recording, they are nine, five and three, two boys and a girl. We homeschool as well. So you know kind of juggling all the things.
But the important thing is all these systems that we’ve created over time, and we’re going to talk more about that, like how that became to be and that’s kind of like how I got here.
It’s an important part of the story. So let’s talk about how I got it right. So growing up, it always felt like life is a struggle, like I had to work harder than everyone else. And I really, I really didn’t feel worthy of success.
There’s one specific instance that stands out that I remember. Like everybody involves remembers to but like math was a struggle. So math was really easy for my brother. It was great. Now I had good grades, but I had to work my butt off to get them like if there was a struggle there. Right. And it was just so frustrating because it came easy to him. But it was a struggle for myself.
And then along the way, what happened is my husband and I faced three major financial roadblocks, the first of which was a business deal. Going back at three months pregnant with my second we made the decision that I could leave my job with State Farm. On a Friday the following Monday business deal went bad zero income overnight at three months pregnant. So there was a little bit of hustling there. We took a 50% income cut. We figured something out that week with the 50% income cut, which then fast forward a little bit.
Six months later when my son was born, he when he was born, everything went great for birth delivery, all of that but a couple hours after he was born.
He turned purple on the table when the pediatrician came in to be there check on him. I remember that I was sitting there I had been holding him they came in so they took him to either check on him and I turned to face like the other way so that I can eat cuz they bought my food and of course, you know, it was already getting cold because mom wife, right.
But he turned purple on the table and they took him back to the NICU, they discovered that he had something that’s called a esophageal atresia with a TEF fistula. So for those of us that are not medical experts, what that means is his esophagus was not connected to his stomach.
He was transferred to the local children’s hospital had his first surgery at less than 48 hours old, had several procedures and surgeries. After that for a total of seven half weeks for our NICU stayed stay. Now that first procedure went well, everything was healed, they were able to attach everything like it needed to be, but there was some complications with the healing, which extended the say, there was also complications there. Well, while that was healing, I was not able to hold him or we were not able to hold him. So it was about 30 days there that we weren’t able to do that.
But during that time, because we had begun to work on the financial literacy part, which that was really the first part there, we should have started with that. Let’s just keep going with it. Okay. So because we had done the work that we had made enough progress, that I was able to be there with my son, throughout the whole process, I left to spend time with my oldest and to take care of myself. But I was able to be there for my son when it really mattered.
And that was really like the first aha moment like how important the finances are. And it’s not just about the income that we make. It’s not just about the money in the bank that we have either, because that’s not always secure either. And we’ll get to that in another episode. But clearly, truly creating that financial security and those options to be there to be able to be with my family when I needed to was so important.
We left the hospital. When he was discharged, he had some it was called the g button. So that was a port in his stomach that he got all his nutrition through. And we had weekly appointments for years now fast forward. Now. He’s the five year old, he’s doing great. He has been G button free. He’s been a graduate for a little over a year now. We hadn’t used it in over two years. And when my husband and I went away for our wedding anniversary, he just his sister decided that he was going to take care of her she was gonna take care of it for us and rip it out. But he was fine. Everything was great. It was time for it to come out. So it came out.
But like that was just like one of the things. And then a couple years after why it was born, my middle son. I ended up having to call 911 for my husband and we knew he was sick. But if you’re married, you know, like guys, and colds are kind of overdramatic sometimes right? So I really thought it was just kind of over exaggerated, but it was not he was pretty sick.
When I got there to pick him up from work. I knew he was dehydrated, but he was basically unconscious. They call it semi conscious. So basically he would grunt at me like if I tried to shake him. So I had to call 911. He was taken to the ER, apparently he is a diabetic, we had no clue. Which, because of where things had gotten, there was a variety of issues that kind of all in are locked. So when you tried to fix one, it was making another one worse. So that was a 20 day hospital stay.
He was out of work for three months 15 of those hospital days, were in the ICU, and we did not have insurance because he had just started with a new company. We had been there for a month. So we were still in the waiting period for the new insurance. The prior company were with did not have insurance. So that was a lot of medical expenses. And you know, they say like to go to the county hospitals. So they’re able to work with you on the cash plan all those things like yeah, we did that. But the problem was, is he worked in a different county that we lived. So simply because we were two miles east. Yep, two miles east of the county line. We had no help with any of the medical bills from the hospital, from the physicians from the ambulance, none of it.
I tell you all of that to tell you that I get it, we would like alright, well back up there.
Starting off. My oldest son was born a couple of days before my 19th birthday. I was a very young single mom, but I knew that I wanted to be able to be there for my family. So how that kind of fit in there. So we just talked about what happened with my son Wyatt and then with my husband as well because I was able to be there for him then as well.
But I had worked my way up andfast food management but that wasn’t going to work anymore because I need to build the work when my son was in daycare, at least until I could figure something else out. That was like kind of the long term game but I found ended up working at State Farm Insurance and my boss was great, absolutely love.
It was a great place to work and they were very family oriented. So it was no problem to get off for like holidays and events for my kid or for my son and The time, but I really wanted to be there for the everyday moments like we talked about those little things that are so important they add up. So that was what sparked me to start the financial literacy and the personal development journey that if I hadn’t done that work, then honestly, I don’t know if I would have met my husband, because I was already diving into the personal development.
I wasn’t the same person that I was, whenever Rusty and I met. And then if we hadn’t done that work then and hadn’t put that effort in, then we wouldn’t have been in the same place that we needed to be to be able to take care of our family with Wyatt. And then later on when Rusty was hospitalized, my husband, if we hadn’t done the work, then we wouldn’t have been able to see. Like, we wouldn’t have had that progress to actually be able to get there. But the only thing is, is I can tell you all about that now and like see that progress and see those successes through all those experiences.
But it wasn’t until a coach helped me see those successes that are experiences because I felt like they were failures. I felt like when why it was born, because I wasn’t contributing to the household, financially at the moment, that all the other stuff that I had done, it didn’t matter because it was only about the money.
Aimee Cerka
They’re at the point and I created the story in my head that that was a failure. But it wasn’t true.
And it was only after a coach helped me see those successes that I was able to really move forward to stop letting the past hold me back to create the finances, the finances, the happiness, the family life, the relationships, that financial security even, like we’ve talked about, but I’m here to help you create as well. So buckle up. I’m really excited for this Your Money Your Life podcast,
I know that this is going to be so helpful and inspiration to you as you dive and so I think that’s it for this episode, and we’ll see you next time. Bye for now
Aimee Cerka 12:09
Thank you so much for listening to the Your Money Your Life podcast. My favorite place to hang out is on Instagram. You can find me @aimeecerka send me a message or post a screenshot and tag me I love hearing from podcast listeners
Aimee Cerka 12:33
When you’re ready to master your money, go to workwithaimee.com You and I will work together to ditch financial stress and struggle for good with a customized plan that works for you. Your goals your priorities your life. I’ll see you next time on the Your Money Your Life podcast.
Aimee Cerka 12:58
If you love today’s episode, make sure to subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcast. That way you will receive new episodes right when they are released then leave a rating and review. It helps amazing people just like you find the show faster. We’ll see you next week.
