Money, Mistakes, and Milestones: 50 Lessons from Deb Meyer | E50
🎉 It’s a celebration! In this milestone 50th episode of the Beyond Budgets® podcast, Deb Meyer takes a seat on the other side of the mic while her husband, Bryan Meyer, steps in as guest host. This heartfelt and insightful episode explores how Beyond Budgets® came to be, what Deb has learned along the way, and what’s ahead for the podcast and the families it serves.
From her earliest days running WorthyNest® and writing Redefining Family Wealth to launching this podcast, Deb shares her motivation to help parents build wealth aligned with faith, family, and personal values.
💡 You’ll hear behind-the-scenes stories about:
(2:24) Why the podcast was launched after Deb’s mother passed away
(6:41) How Deb records episodes without a fancy studio
(7:41) The real impact of moving cross-country multiple times
(11:46) What Deb learned from expert guests on college planning and allowance strategies
(16:32) How her own parenting and financial mindset evolved through 50 episodes
Plus, Deb reveals what’s next for Beyond Budgets®. Whether you’ve been here since episode one or just discovered the show, this is a warm, wisdom-filled episode packed with encouragement for every parent navigating money and meaning.
Episode Highlights
The origins and evolution of the Beyond Budgets® podcast
Balancing podcasting with parenting and real-life moves
Why your financial mistakes don’t define your future
How podcast guests have influenced Deb's family decisions
Plans for future episodes and how listeners can get involved
Related Episodes to Check Out
Ep 5: Understanding College Financial Aid with Joe Messinger
Ep 13: Raising Financially Savvy Kids with Clifton Corbin
Ep 18: Turning Dreams Into Reality With Values-Based Financial Planning
Ep 33: College Funding Secrets Every Parent Needs to Know
Ep 44: Wellness as Wealth with Rita Johnson
Connect with Host Deb Meyer, CFP®
Founder of WorthyNest®, helping faith-driven parents build financial plans that reflect their values.
Download your FREE Guide | Take the 2-minute Financial Wellness Quiz | Follow us on YouTube
Subscribe & Review
If Beyond Budgets® has helped your family think differently about money, parenting, faith (or all 3), would you please leave a review? It helps more parents like you discover the show.
Full transcript
Deb Meyer (00:01.89)
Celebrate good times come on, it's a celebration! All right, I'm so excited to welcome you to this very special episode of Beyond Budgets. We're actually celebrating 50 episodes, and my husband and my better half, Bryan, he's actually going to be the host. And i'm in the hot seat as the guest, so please give him grace he's never done a podcast before.
He's a long-time W2 employee, and he's a recruiter for a global HR company. So we're gonna be discussing the journey of the podcast and what you can expect going forward. All right, without further ado, I give you host Bryan Meyer.
Bryan Meyer (00:45.164)
Yay! So thanks for having me as the host here and congrats on celebrating 50 episodes, Deb. So wonderful to hear that. So first question, let's go back to the beginning. What made you start Beyond Budgets in the first place?
Deb Meyer (01:02.6)
That's a big question. The short answer is to help parents build wealth in alignment with their values. I'm super passionate about helping families really take control of their finances and feel more confident about their financial decisions. The long story starts a little bit before then. So when I started my registered investment advisory firm, WorthyNest, back in late 2016, I had a vision to serve lots of people.
But I realized I only have so much time in the day, and one-on-one relationships take a lot of time and cultivation. They are great. I love the one-on-one relationships I have with clients, but I also felt like my experience in the industry and coming at it also from a faith dimension and as a parent, I felt like I had a unique perspective to offer and really wanted to spread that message with more people.
Helping with education, even from like an early time of the registered investment advisory firm doing blog posts and then eventually writing the book, Redefining Family Wealth. And then really loving that writing journey for a while. Once the book was launched, I ended up doing quite a few guest podcasts where I was the person being interviewed.
And that was actually a lot of fun. It was a little bit different dimension for me, but I enjoyed it. And then after my mom passed away in late 2022, I just kind of didn't have an interest in writing anymore. And I thought, okay, let's go back to something different and do the podcast. So it was about...
Bryan Meyer (02:26.894)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (02:48.45)
10 months after she passed away that we launched Beyond Budgets podcast. And it was a really healing time for me, still going through a lot of grief associated with losing her. So I just hope, you know, the timing of the launch and everything like that, I hope I brought some enthusiasm and excitement to it for you, you long time audience listeners, or even if you just discovered the podcast recently, it's...
Deb Meyer (03:15.998)
It's definitely been a journey and I'm just so grateful to be celebrating 50 episodes about two years later.
Bryan Meyer (03:22.382)
Mm-hmm.
What a journey. So 50 episodes. mean, you shared a lot there. going back to, a little homework. So you launched the podcast back in November of 2023. So maybe talk to me about how your vision changed since then. Maybe what's different now than you expected at the start.
Deb Meyer (03:35.606)
Yep.
Deb Meyer (03:43.424)
Yeah, it's been, I do feel like when I started, I had a very clear idea of guests that I wanted to have on the podcast. So a lot of the early interviews were people that I admired in the financial services industry that I had already known. They were people in my network that I thought had some valuable information to offer.
And then as the podcast evolved, I realized, hey, there's a lot of cool people that I've never even met, but are now starting to pitch me and say, hey, could I be a guest on the show and offer this valuable insight? So that's been kind of interesting, just broadening my circle of who I'm interacting with in financial services, but even finding guests that are outside financial services that have great messages for parents.
I don't think money and like financial wealth, that's the only be all and end all. It's really about having a greater future for your family and showing up in the best possible way as a parent. So I know one of the guests, had Rita Johnson recently over the summer and she was talking about physical wellness, like what you can do to help your body, what kind of things you should be eating and really like.
Bryan Meyer (04:57.87)
Hmm.
Deb Meyer (05:03.404)
focusing on that aspect of it. We touched a little bit on financial stuff and some of her travels, but like the main focus was how can we be physically well and understanding the trade-offs when it comes to food choices, eating, how that does impact the budget, but it can be a short-term financial pain, but for a long-term gain of better overall health. So I think that's been kind of the pivot is like not just focusing on
Bryan Meyer (05:08.782)
You
Bryan Meyer (05:14.19)
Hmm.
Bryan Meyer (05:26.178)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (05:32.094)
strictly financial concepts or bringing in people just in the financial community, but really trying to broaden the assistance that we're offering and the education that we're offering through the podcast.
Bryan Meyer (05:40.937)
Mm-hmm.
Bryan Meyer (05:47.766)
I love that. know you spoke about values-based financial planning, but also that physical financial well-being, such an important part of the holistic approach that you provide. So wonderful. So I know our audience wants to take a peek behind the curtain. So tell us some of the juicy stuff. What's something your audience might be surprised to learn about, what's really like to create and maybe running this podcast?
Deb Meyer (06:14.274)
I think it surprises people when they find out I just, don't have a fancy studio. I just do it wherever we live. So you've probably seen, you notice some of the YouTube videos, like with shorts, there's some of the more recent episodes that we've done, the full videos that the behind the scenes actually changes depending on which state we're living in, right? So now we're based here in Florida.
Bryan Meyer (06:22.871)
Hahaha.
Bryan Meyer (06:37.517)
Of course.
Deb Meyer (06:43.814)
and we were based in Florida previously. We're actually in the same house as before, but yeah, it's been a fun journey of like, okay, I don't have this elaborate podcast studio. literally just getting the right mic and the headset and going wherever we happen to be. So when we were taking our road trip over the summer,
Fortunately, I'd already scheduled all of the interviews prior to that. So I didn't have to bring all of that equipment on the road, yeah, I'm also super grateful. I've had Tammy with Wildfire Creative as my podcast editor since day one. And she really was pivotal in helping launch the podcast, helping me as a newbie figure out what some of the nuances were. She helps a lot of different podcasters.
that's been super helpful as well. Just having someone who, knows the industry, knows what the right formats and things like that are and being a good sounding board when I have ideas and I'm like, Hey, is this something worth pursuing or, or not? So, she helped me kind of early on to find, okay, we're going to do it this length of time instead of doing hour and a half long episodes. Let's try to get something more digestible in like a half hour to
40 minutes, sometimes even less on the solo episodes because busy parents don't have a lot of time to listen to super lengthy episodes, right? So it's just stuff like that, but I really do credit her team in helping shape this podcast over the years.
Bryan Meyer (08:27.847)
Definitely, it always takes a village sometimes. And 50 episodes, you've probably learned a lot. So there's probably been some really powerful episodes, of course, conversations and maybe some solo stories that really stick out with some of the people that you've spoken with. But tell me which ones stand out to you, maybe the most and why.
Deb Meyer (08:41.6)
Hmm.
Deb Meyer (08:48.374)
Yeah, there have been so many good episodes. It's hard to encapsulate. I think one of the ones that was most impactful for a lot of parents, especially if they have like kids in middle school or high school was Ann Garcia's episode on college planning more recently. And then even early on, Joe Messenger came on and talked about college planning from a little bit different angle. His was more on the funding side. Hers was more focused on being a mom of daughters that went on
college and I'm sorry she had a daughter and a son but different pathways and like how even though they were going to school at the same time they were drawn to different schools and how school choice can have a really big impact.
not only financially, but just in how the student's going to adapt during college. So I do love the college planning episodes. I found those super beneficial and it's just an area that I'm more interested in, you know, growing my knowledge base as well. So I'm forgetting the exact titles on some of these, but Anne Garcia and Joe Messenger, those are the two college planning episodes. Anne's was pretty recent earlier this year and then Joe's was...
very close to when we launched the podcast in late 2023. So those were some favorites. And then I also really liked the solo episode on using values-based financial planning to make some big decisions. So that was when we were first moving from
Florida back up to Missouri and just feeling like this was the right thing to do. I felt the Lord very strongly calling us back. And even in retrospect, now that we're back in Florida and it wasn't as great a fit as we thought, there's still so many cool lessons that I learned from our time back in Missouri. And one of that I just want to mention is our marriage. I feel like God really strengthened our marriage in that time.
Bryan Meyer (10:45.931)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (10:53.814)
when you're navigating huge life changes, it can either be a stressful point where you break or where you come closer together. And for us, I felt like it was really coming closer together. So that's been my perspective. Maybe you want to weigh in on that as well if that's been your takeaway, but.
I also think moving back to Missouri was helpful from like a grieving process perspective. So I ended up taking a like grieving, not class, but like a group session where we met every week for two months and we had all lost someone that we loved deeply. And that was a really healing process as well. So.
The episode leading up to that move, think, was a really cool one. then, yeah, I haven't really recorded too much in terms of lessons learned. Although I think I did just recently talk about a few high-level lessons. I just haven't shared all of the nitty-gritty details as much.
Bryan Meyer (11:44.109)
Mm-hmm.
Bryan Meyer (11:55.228)
Hmm.
Bryan Meyer (11:59.279)
That's why we love the nitty gritty details. I mean, you bring up a few good points. mean, with growing families, college planning is so important. We've got a young, a growing family, one close to college. So financial planning for college or what the next steps are for our family is important financially, but also we know that it's super important for lot of our neighbors, our friends and family that are in that same space.
Deb Meyer (12:02.88)
Okay.
Bryan Meyer (12:27.618)
You mentioned Worthy Nest, the Lord drawing us, whether it's a strong marriage. For me personally, it's the marriage that built that strong foundational base to grow our family with the mission that we liked, but with the Lord at the center. And I know you've brought this up many times, but faith.
Deb Meyer (12:46.88)
Yeah.
Bryan Meyer (12:51.732)
family and finances but it's really paramount to worthiness and I can really see it in your work so kudos to you. So okay so I know you work well with with parents, growing families of course, what do you wish every parent could understand about money maybe regardless of income or background?
Deb Meyer (12:55.052)
Yeah. Aw.
Deb Meyer (13:09.482)
Yeah, I think it's important to realize that any kind of mistakes you've made in the past with money don't have to define your future. I want you to hear that again because you can hear it but not really process it. So any mistakes you've made in the past don't have to define your future.
And even as like a financial advisor, I still make financial mistakes. mean, honestly, like our whole moving back and forth, it was a big financial sacrifice both ways, right? But at the end of the day, you use those as learning opportunities and you can build off of those quote unquote failures or mistakes and really shape the trajectory going forward, knowing that like, hey, I've already tried that, it didn't work.
Bryan Meyer (13:29.89)
Love that.
Bryan Meyer (13:59.119)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (13:59.304)
let's move on and do something different, maybe experiment some other way, right? So that I think is the most important lesson for people to realize as they're on these journeys. But also, like, it's not all just about money. I mean, honestly, like, what we do, we've been very financially blessed over the last several years, but we're not going out and spending it on...
tangible things. Like being frank, I mean, we're driving like pretty modest vehicles and just living in a pretty modest house and it's a beautiful house. Like I love it and I love our vehicles, but like they're not the be all end all. So I do think it's important when you are blessed financially that you're also realizing
It's not about the tangible things. It's about the relationships. It's about how you can serve others with that money. like generosity has been huge in our family. And I'm not gonna go into exact numbers on like what we spend on charitable giving, but even you sometimes question like, whoa, we did that much to charity last year. I'm like, yep, we did. But we've been so blessed with that opportunity to.
use financial resources as a giving tool.
Bryan Meyer (15:21.899)
Absolutely.
Deb Meyer (15:24.29)
It's gratifying when you can get to a place of contentment with finances where you don't feel like you're always behind the eight ball. And, you know, for some people they just never find that contentment because they're always pouring into some new thing, right? And for others, we can find it. We take like a very balanced, prudent approach. And yes, there's some hard work involved, but also there's a
Bryan Meyer (15:28.91)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (15:52.032)
some blessing as well. So it's a combination of like your own efforts, but also God sometimes puts certain people in positions to earn more money and have more financial resources, just as you think about like the parable of the talents. Like some people are gonna grow those talents and some people are gonna bury them in the ground. And the goal would be any listener of Beyond Budgets is able to grow those talents, right?
Bryan Meyer (16:15.116)
Right, I love the parable analogy.
Bryan Meyer (16:21.08)
Mm-hmm. No, those are some wonderful comments and I always I love how you brought up generosity because a lot You know, it's not about so much money or the level of income is what we do with it It's how we harness our treasures our talents, of course to make the most of it Lord willing but at the same time I think it's about building that financial piece, right? We talked a lot about building financial piece not just financial success in terms of buying things
Deb Meyer (16:45.218)
You
Bryan Meyer (16:51.288)
But how has doing this podcast maybe changed your own relationship with money and parenting?
Deb Meyer (16:59.606)
Yeah, it's been interesting, especially when I bring on other guests to get their perspectives on how they're living their lives. I'm learner is my top strength. So whenever I bring on a new guest, want, I you see the books by our nightstand or the books behind me.
Bryan Meyer (17:09.449)
Mm-hmm.
Bryan Meyer (17:13.866)
I validate that. I rubber stamped that, that's true. Of course, avid reader.
Deb Meyer (17:28.278)
Yeah, there are very few books I haven't read that are like visually showing in the video here. But learner is my top strength. So anytime I can learn from someone else and use that to help our journey, will.
take full advantage of that. So as an example, like I remember Chris Baden came on the podcast and was talking about homeschooling. And this was a time that we were contemplating homeschooling ourselves. We have not actually gone down that road, but we were thinking about it strongly. getting him and his perspective on how his families worked with homeschooling and how that impacts their budget, it was really interesting and helpful for me to hear some of that insight.
Bryan Meyer (17:47.605)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (18:16.43)
And so I think as I get different guests on, and you probably noticed this as a listener, I'm really like, yes, I'm trying to help you, but I'm also trying to get fresh ideas of like how we can adapt some of our family situation. I also had like Clifton Corden on fairly early on and he was talking about...
allowances and are they appropriate or not with kids and and even like how to engage in money conversations with your kids. So I was using some of his tools. I asked him, said, hey, my son at the time he was like 10 and this is our middle son. He was 10 and I was just having a hard time like getting through to him. Anytime we go to Target, he'd be like, hey, can I buy Pokemon cards? And I was like,
we have a lot of Pokemon cards, do we really need another set of Pokemon cards? But then he's like, well, if he's interested in Pokemon cards, maybe some of the money conversations could be around Pokemon cards, like already gravitate towards what they are naturally wanting to talk about and then figure out ways that you can take those concepts and bring them into something they're already interested in.
Bryan Meyer (19:10.318)
We do.
Deb Meyer (19:34.76)
Or I think it was something about video games as well, because our oldest was really big into video games at the time. So then I was like, well, let's figure out how we can talk about video games and incorporate personal finance concepts. So yeah, mean, that's been a big help just hearing some of the perspectives of other guests and how they're navigating it in their own families. And that's what I hope to share with you, the audience, because I do feel like it's good to hear that there's no one size fits all approach
It comes to building a solid family financial foundation.
Bryan Meyer (20:09.452)
No, and that's wonderful. And I think, you know, with the one size, not fitting everyone approach, you know, as more as much as you can, as you're talking to these folks, all different levels, all different spectrums, you know, you're getting a lot of good perspectives that you could share. that's the whole, you know, that's the whole point of this podcast and they know worthiness and what they're driving. Which brings me to my last and final question. So here's a big one. So tell us, you know, what's next with Beyond Budgets or for Beyond Budgets? You know, what's next?
What are you dreaming about in the next chapter, Deb?
Deb Meyer (20:42.645)
Yeah.
Well, I love this format of doing like every other week episodes. I think it's helpful to have a solid base there, but I am excited to just continue to bring on more guests that are going to really help you become a well-rounded parent. And that might be people outside the finance industry. So be, you know, on the lookout for that. I still I'll be bringing finance experts in as well, but I do think it's
Bryan Meyer (21:03.31)
Mm-hmm.
Deb Meyer (21:13.924)
important to have that balance. And I'm also excited to continue on with some of the solo episodes. I know usually when clients are working with me one-on-one, if they found me through the podcast in some way, or form, they say, I really found this solo episode to be helpful as I'm thinking about estate planning or whatever the technical topic is. So I try to keep the solo episodes more technically focused, technical content and
more of the interviews, just learning about whoever that guest is and their area of expertise. So it might not be as technical with a guest as what I'm trying to put into a solo episode, but hopefully it's a good mix of the two by alternating it. So that's what I would envision continuing to be beyond budgets. I don't anticipate any huge changes in terms of
We're probably not ever going to have it like a weekly podcast. just unfortunately don't have the capacity or bandwidth to do the weekly commitment, but every other week seems to be that sweet spot where you can get some fun education, but you're also getting enough of a break that you don't have to be, you know.
changing your whole schedule just to listen to the podcast. So that's what's on the horizon. Hopefully we'll be getting to 100 episodes in another two years or so. Yep.
Bryan Meyer (22:42.328)
Beautiful.
Bryan Meyer (22:47.086)
That's part of the journey, part of the growth. that's how, you know, I think you can kind of lay that path to help your audience grow as well. So, all right. So I lied, I must fall on the sword. I have one more question. You know, before I hand over the mic to its rightful owner, Deb, obviously congrats again on 50 episodes. I who would have thought, right? But what would you say to the people who have been listening since episode one?
Deb Meyer (23:01.666)
You
Deb Meyer (23:05.708)
Ha ha.
Thanks, honey.
Deb Meyer (23:16.278)
Mm-hmm.
Bryan Meyer (23:16.962)
And I remember listening to that episode, by the way. It was great. But ever since episode one, or maybe who just found the show last week, tell us a little bit about what you would say to those people today.
Deb Meyer (23:28.066)
Yeah, especially the people episode one, the launch group. I am so appreciative of your support over the years. It's been a fun journey and I hope it continues to be a useful journey for you in the future. I really do put my heart and soul into developing these episodes and just making sure they meet standards of excellence. So I hope that comes through.
If you ever have ideas for like podcast guests that you'd like to hear, let me know. Like I said, I get quite a few inquiries on a weekly basis from people I don't know or, you know, podcast agencies where they're recommending guests. So I am very...
I guess picky about which guests that I bring on and make sure that they're going to add value. But if you know of someone in particular that you'd just love to have on the show and you think they would be a good fit, that they could help other parents like yourself, please feel free to send an email to info at wordiness.com. And then for those of you who just recently discovered the show, whether you...
discovered it last week or a few months ago, I just encourage you to go back to some of the earlier episodes. There are a lot of just valuable pieces of information in each episode that really can help you in every way with your financial life. I kind of on those earlier episodes, probably the first year, any of the solos, I was kind of following the format of the book, Redefining Family Wealth. So if you're not much of a reader and I know
Brian, probably prefer the podcast over reading. It can be really helpful to go back to some of those solo episodes and get some of the concepts that were developed in that book. And the book is quite a bit older now. It was published in 2019. any of the podcast episodes are gonna bring forth some of the additional information that.
Bryan Meyer (25:16.182)
I do.
Deb Meyer (25:37.024)
I've discovered since then. So I hope that's a helpful point of reference, but either way, I'm grateful.
And I'd encourage you, if you're not already on the email list for Worthy Nest, please go ahead and in the show notes, I'll put a link where you can either take a free quiz or download the free guide directly. There's a guide called Family Finance Miss, the top 10 family finance myths. And then there's also a quiz if you're trying to kind of gauge what your financial wellness level is. It's like a two minute free quiz. Either pathway will get you on that.
that list and then you'll receive emails from me on Fridays. So some Fridays I'm really religious about sending it every Friday and then others I'm like, I'll do it every other week after a podcast episode is released.
One other way to find us if you're interested, like in videos, we do post some shorts and occasionally we'll post the full length video episode on YouTube. So that's another place to find us with Beyond Budgets podcast.
Bryan Meyer (26:47.776)
Awesome, well Deb, thanks for having me. Love to be the host. Congrats again on 50 episodes. Wonderful insights, of course. You always bring the enthusiasm and faith, family, and finance. So thank you again and congrats.
Deb Meyer (27:00.694)
Thank you for hosting, honey. I really appreciate your support over the years. And I couldn't have done any of this without your love and steadfast support, honestly. Okay, thanks.
Bryan Meyer (27:14.71)
Absolutely, right back at you. Well, congrats again. See you guys.
Deb Meyer (27:21.154)
Bye.